Some people call it a great inequity. A few say it’s merely a fallacy. Others simply accept it as a fact of life.
But in the race for awards, do small brands always trump big mass market ones?
In other words, are the odds of winning a creative award inversely proportional to the size of your brand?
Big, real-life, mass market brands, saddled by committee approvals, pre- and post-air tests and political correctness, seem destined to produce effective and ultimately boring advertising, while small maverick clients, with their non-prime time media budgets, foster the next shoe-in at the award shows.
But is this really the case? Let’s take a look at the winners of the 20th Araw Awards. Best in Medium honors went to Pond’s “Pore”, Cinemalaya’s “Playtime” and Lotus Spa’s “Traffic Therapy.”
Pond’s, of course, is a major Unilever brand, and presumably, this idea went through the same series of gauntlets as most other ULI brands. “Pore” is a billboard, produced inexpensively compared to a digitally manicured TV spot, but its prominent location on South Luzon Expressway assures that practically every commuter in Metro Manila has seen it. So,
Big Brands – 1
Small Brands – 0
How about Cinemalaya “Playtime” TVC? Okay, it’s not a shampoo, not instant noodles, not a phone card. Promoting an annual film festival, creativity is the minimum requirement for the ad. After all, the spot has to be just as fresh and interesting as the indie movies it sells.
While not a conventional product or service, the Cinemalaya (which literally means “free cinema”) festival is backed by a well-known client, the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP). Of course, one can argue that the CCP is an atypical advertiser, run by artistic types who are unlikely to approve pedestrian advertising. But as we know, an “artistic” client can be a creative’s worst nightmare.
Okay, it’s a legit ad for a legit—albeit small—client.
Big Brands – 1
Small Brands – 1
This leaves Lotus Spa “Traffic Therapy.” Until it had won the country’s first Gold Lion, Filipinos had never heard of Lotus Spa, and given its tiny media budget, they probably still haven’t.
The client, who has small storefront in the posh Podium mall, is a former suit (who presumably is predisposed to smart creative work) and a friend of the agency. We can hear the cries of “No fair!” already, as well as the occasional whispered “scam.”
Nevertheless, the client is real. Besides, which self-respecting agency hasn’t taken on a small account in the hopes of growing it?
Big Brands – 1
Small Brands – 2
Small brands win! Yey!
Of course, we’re just toying with you. The issue isn’t that simple, so we asked a few Araw jurists about their views. And even then, it only seems that we only managed to scratch the surface.
For starters, considering Araw winners like Pond’s, FedEx and Western Union, Melvin Mangada doesn’t think there is a debate.
“Awards are still the currency by which an agency’s creativity is measured. But to say that winners this year were not for major brands is undermining all the efforts from Unilever and its agency, whose outdoor work for Ponds has been hugely recognized around the world. As for the rest of us, we just have to do better work for bigger brands.”
In particular, Richard Irvine explains that juries don’t discriminate between big and small brands; they only identify the biggest idea on the table.
He says, “In the case of the radio competition, the work that we awarded Gold and Silver, specifically Lotus Spa, Comic Quest and Cadbury, was by far the best work submitted, and it deserved to win within the rules set out by the organizing committee. Was any of this work supported by a realistic media budget? To be honest I don’t know, but I could certainly hazard at a guess.”
David Guerrero, whose agency won many Araw awards for FedEx and KBP, adds, “Of course, the ideal situation is one where the biggest clients buy the best work and run it on primetime to the largest audience.”
But he draws parallels with other media and points out that this is hardly the case.
“The best movies, for example, are often those shown at small independent film festivals (like Cinemalaya), not necessarily those on at all seven screens at the multiplex with a multi-billion dollar budget. The best-selling books rarely have as much merit as the winner of the Booker prize. And the latest pop tune at the top of the charts isn’t usually an enduring musical masterpiece. When you see it in that perspective, advertising is an amazingly populist medium.”
Few people know that better than Merlee Jayme, who has worked on P&G, McDonald’s and SMART. She says, “When we win for ‘small clients’, we know very well that the challenge to make it as creative as possible is not as tough as our ‘everyday’ work on major brands. So my vote still goes to the Ponds and Tides of this world. Try winning for a telco, and I’ll wholeheartedly tell you why it should deserve a platinum.”
Ditto for Peachy Pacquing, another veteran of the Big Brand. She says frankly, “I’ll be honest. I work with huge global clients and oftentimes find myself muttering ‘Clients get the work they deserve.’
“It takes a different kind of client to sign off on work that makes them uncomfortable. In this day and age of accountability and measurement, it is comforting to go with work that tests well because there is a clear reason to believe or a well-defined functional benefit, etc. In other words, work that has worked before…
“But I also believe that placing the blame for lackluster creative solely on the clients is escapism at its finest and just plain irresponsible.”
As Mangada says, it’s a matter of working harder on the bigger brands. Tay Guan Hin, for example, takes care of the Unilever business and wins awards.
“Clients or agencies will be always unhappy with the outcome if they don’t win,” he explains, offering this advice. “In the story of David and Goliath, it’s not the size but the ingenious use of weapon that wins. Similarly, it’s not how big your brand is but the size of your ideas. Ideas that are strategically sound and creatively well executed will be rewarded.”
Sometimes, the key is to use our marketing prowess on our own clients.
Linda Locke says, “We are all struggling to get more clients to buy better work. This year at The Singapore Creative Circle awards we introduced the Clients Choice. Ten clients, both International and from Singapore, were asked to choose and talk about their favorite piece of Print (from the metal winners). They were taped and the film was played on the night after the show chairman’s speech.
“It did three things: (a) Reminded everyone why we get paid to do what we do; (b) Made you realize that a lot of clients are very capable of evaluating good work; (c) Made agencies want to try harder to do better work for their clients; and (d) Made 10 clients want to buy better work the next time their agency presents it.”
And it appears that some of our local clients do. Irvine says, “Well, we [of the AdCon] now appear to be fully paid-up members of the Asia Pacific award show scene, where in recent years, most domestic shows have presented their highest awards to charities, small Ma and Pa enterprises and pro bono efforts…As brilliant, and as world class as this work may be, it’s not generally representative of the industry’s day-to-day output.”
So in the end, the Big Brand-Small Brand contest ends in a draw, which bodes well for the industry. Or at least, it should.
