http://dennyhatch.blogspot.com/2021/06/131-kantar-excellence-awards.html
#131 Blog Post — Thursday, June17, 2017
Posted by Denny Hatch
A Scheme to Give Awards to the Worst
TV, Internet & Digital Commercials of 2020
The World's Most Creative and Effective Ads
"Great advertising needs to drive short term sales and build your brand in the long term. We analysed over 10,000 ads we tested in 2020 to identify the best ads.
"Kantar's Creative Effectiveness Awards are the only advertising awards judged by consumers. They celebrate winning ads that are both creative and effective: advertising that is distinctive and helps drive sales in the short term and creates meaningful impressions to build brands in the long term."
—Kanter Intro
Below Are the 20 Winning Kantar
"Creative Effectiveness Awards 2021"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dD6r53DWxwk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nemoQhysUH8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAFL7J2WPAc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTdwHRf28zY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVwirX7Nom
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAC2Q-FMMns
https://www.ispot.tv/ad/ZFut/google-find-your-scene-song-by-hall-and-oates
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y71F7wUyyPk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0SqcViUYeZI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-eYXLMe_9E
https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=6pKyIY41Yjw&feature=youtu.be
UNAVAILABLE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KChk_DDgzKg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXKB3aISYYY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2ju7lSc_RM
UNAVAILABLE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3730gNVAN0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGDWMTtBzgk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_mp960ayzs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BxtxrNs7dFU
Takeaways to Consider
• I have 60 years' experience in direct marketing—a.k.a. accountable advertising and precise arithmetic. These ads are all manic and as unfocused as a giant Social Media cocktail party.
• All these ads are not judged on sales success. They were chosen by consumers who voted on their likeability.
• There is absolutely no way in hell to track the amount of product moved as a result of these ads. Not one of 'em can be judged on ROI.
• These are emphatically NOT "effective" ads.
• "Your job is to sell, not entertain."
—Jack Maxson
• "I can't judge good marketing. It judges me. If can be shown to generate revenue and good ROI, it's good Advertising." —DH
• "Every time we get creative, we lose money."
—Ed McCabe, President, RCA Record Club
• A personal aside. As editor and publisher of the WHO'S MAILING WHAT! newsletter and archive service, I was invited to be a judge of the Direct Marketing Association's ECHO Awards. This was heady stuff for me—a little industry squirt hobnobbing with the world's top agency executives and creative directors. We gathered at DMA headquarters in the Sour Apple to study and vote our choices for the best direct mail efforts of the year.
I knew the most successful direct mail every year. My business was analyzing 1,800+ mailings a month and highlighting for my readers those that kept coming in over and over again—year after year. These repeats were the big winners—generating buckets of loot for the mailers (and for the copywriters if they were working on royalty basis).
My great friend and mentor, guru Axel Andersson—was an equally avid student of direct mail as I. One day he called me from Florida with an amazing discovery. He had analyzed the prior year's ECHO winners and discovered only two percent of them were ever mailed a second time. That meant 98% of all the ECHO winners were failures—simply flash and filigree. It turned out ECHO was a sad-sack scheme among industry creatives to give each other awards for the trophy cases in their corporate waiting rooms. The object: to impress gullible prospective clients.
I resigned from the committee. I was a nitwit to have become involved.
• "Awards are like hemorrhoids. Sooner or later every old asshole gets one."
—Charlotte Rampling, "The Swimming Pool," 2003.
Now What?
First off, I urge you to sign up for Kantar's fat, fascinating PDF report on the 2021 Awards. It's free. No cost. No obligation.
https://www.kantar.com/campaigns/creative-effective
What do you think about these ads and this business model? I believe readers of this cranky blog would love to have your take on the program—and awards in general.
I invite you to share your thoughts. Am I nuts—an ancient curmudgeon who believes advertising should make money? Do take a moment. Scroll down to the Comment Section below and have at me!
If you find getting into the Comment Section too onerous, send me your thoughts and I will enter them for you. I am: dennyhatch@yahoo.com.
Thank you.
Cheers.
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Note: Brad Glazier gave me the okay to share his email to me in the Comment Section. (Thank you, Brad!)
ReplyDeleteI found this interesting and it somewhat mirrors my experience with Kantar. Back in 2019 I started a digital B2B brand THE APPLIANCE & HVAC REPORT. This was done to replace a BNP Media title I repped for 15 years, Appliance Design, that they folded in April of '19. (God forbid they ask me with 15 years on the title what I would do if I owned it, so now while they lost tons of $ I am making money on a brand serving the same market LOL. Typical suits! )
I assume you are familiar with SRDS, which is owned by Kantar. We are doing pretty well for a start-up, especially with pandemic going on. So I decided to do a 3 month trial in SRDS, though none of the other publishers in my category were advertising with them. So I thought I might stand out.
Unfortunately, while I had people look at us in SRDS, Kantar will not tell their advertisers who they are. I did know that going in, but their marketing method is I think out of touch with the way the marketing world works today.
No one ever called me from seeing my ad so I assume it was a waste, but I thought it worth a try.
thx
Brad Glazer
Brad, Thank you for taking the time to write. Real interesting insight.
ReplyDeleteMy advice to advertisers is to go where your competition goes. Chances are a medium that’s been around awhile (e.g., SRDS) has been tested by marketers in your field and they are not there because it didn’t work.
Thank you again. Do keep in touch!
Yes, making money the goal. That's why so many in the industry hold contests. The entry fees, relatively small to the agencies, earn big bucks for the promoters. I helped create the Portfolio Awards for the Financial Marketing Association of New York. Big profit center.
ReplyDeleteJeffrey, Thank you for taking the time to comment. You've inspired me to look into contests and maybe create a blog.
DeleteDo keep in touch!
Cheers!
NOTE: David Amkraut gave me the okay to share with you his email to me about this blot post. (Thank you, Dave!) ——DH
ReplyDeleteOn Thursday, June 17, 2021, 01:31:33 PM EDT, wrote:
David Ogilvy was one of many who despised obsessions over “creativity” and “beauty” in ads, which, along with political correctness, are the main bases for awards these days. Unfortunately, I can’t find the quotation, but I remember him saying he’d like to ban his agency from seeking and getting awards, which were just a huge distraction from its business--- sales.
I believe Claude Hopkins, M Sackheim, Caples and many others made the same point.
Going a bit farther afield, I’m reminded of Jewish organizations which are obsessed with giving each other’s leaders and donors awards, to the point of self-parody. A few critics have made suggestions such as a ten-year moratorium on awards, which they rightly consider a huge distraction from these organization’s important work.
Now for a happy story about avoiding “creativity” and award-hunting. When I was in law school, I helped start up a new law journal (student-edited scholarly periodical). My colleagues, very smart people all (or they wouldn’t have been accepted in a top 10 school) thought our promotion needed to be “super creative” and “clever.” I thought it should sell the journal. It’s a long story, but I persuaded them that sales were what mattered, to let me write the direct mail, and to price the journal at 3 - 5 x the going subscription rate for such publications. That was a compromise; I wanted an even higher price, knowing most of the prospects were not price-sensitive. The journal was valuable, aimed at a niche audience, decently priced, and the results more or less brought my fellow editors around to my thinking.
Today the journal, Berkeley Technology Law Journal, is the most-cited technology law journal in the country, publishing important work by preeminent scholars on topics such as intellectual property, cyber law, and biotechnology. The successful law journal also led to development of the renowned Berkeley Center for Law and Technology, the leading organization of its type in the country.
And, to simplify a bit, this all happened because, at the journal’s birth, we emphasized benefits and avoided being “clever” and “creative.” (Well, maybe there were a few other factors.)
Regards from your avid reader and acerbic critic of advertising stupidity.
NOTE: Gary North gave me the okay to share with you his email. (Thanks, Gary.)
ReplyDeleteDenny:
It was over 50 years ago that I was watching “The Tonight Show.” I did not watch it after grad school, so I know it was the late 1960s.
Carson invited Ogilvy to view ads. I did not know who he was.
Carson showed a series of clever ads. I recall one from Japan. It was a dog peeing on a car’s tire.
After every ad, Ogilvy said that he thought it did not sell anything. Why Carson’s scheduler brought Ogilvy on escapes me to this day.
Carson was looking for laughs.
Ogilvy had decided years ago: “Clever doesn’t sell” (unless Stan Freberg produced it). He threw cold water on every ad.
That was my first introduction to reasons-why advertising.
Amazing article, sir. I’ve always held direct response marketing close to my chest in times where people have persuaded me to use untested methods, and seeing this article justifies my distrust for these irrational methods. They always look pretty, but the bottom line always suffers when form precedes function.
ReplyDeleteI found your work from Eben Pagan, I’m so glad you’re still publishing on your blog. I hope this comment brings you joy that the youth hasn’t given up on giving people better wants. (I just learned that from visiting you, what a gem, sir.)
Best wishes,
Art W.
Nashville, TN