BEST TV Sorry Chorus, any other week you would be a winner. Your "
Bad Net" spot with slow internet visualised in the real world is beautifully realised with superb detail and wit. Unfortunately, it doesn't get to win this week. There are two stonkers ahead of it - The New York Times and Setapp.
In "
Life needs Truth" the type brilliantly takes the lead role which is just perfect for a brand that's a bastion for written journalism. The way the live free jazz together with the sound design somehow allow the viewer to read the poetry of the interloping headlines is genius. Because of the craft it flows amazingly well. The whole thing is balanced to perfection. A truly excellent example of an ad made in lockdown that rather than be restricted by these confines has actually embraced them and delivered something progressive.
Then from the same agency, but tonally a world apart - is
Setapp. It's so refreshing to see work like this again. I've been waiting for it's like for what seems like an age. At long last it's here. Please, everyone be inspired, let's have more. That said this lot make it look easy. It really isn't. The work feels effortless and the off kilter twisted take here is sublime. It's tightly written, astutely directed, impossible not to love.
But if I had to choose (which I do), it would be Setapp, by the width of a shed snakeskin.
BEST PRINT My runner up here is
Brewdog, but
Netsafe is my runaway favourite. It helps people decipher real from fake news in an interesting, fun and super relevant way. Smart.
BEST OUTDOOR I can't pick a winner in this category either. This time it's for a very different reason - I don't really like any of them. I must say though that the positioning behind
The Vegetarian Butcher is truly excellent - vegan food pitched to people that love meat - that's great, so too is the name - it's just that the work is slightly underwhelming.
I'd give a notable mention to
Hanbel as a runner up as the idea of a virus to fight a virus is interesting, but honestly do we really need hand sanitiser advertising?
BEST INTERACTIVEMy favourite here is definitely
#FreeFortnite. Epic games have been really punchy yet methodical in their pre-planning in their attack on Apple. All of which is epitomised here by the cheek of pastiching the iconic "1984" Apple ad. Not knowing the original won't make one iota of a difference to the devoted legions of gamers who will have rallied around Epic Games' challenge. Whether it's enough to get what the developer wants, is another thing entirely.
As a runner up I choose the
smile masks, simple, fun and relevant. Nice one.
This week's guest judge is Andy Jex, chief creative officer at TBWALondon.
"You're from Enfield. You should be putting up the adverts, not writing them" said Andy's Mum many moons ago.
Eventually advertising found a place for Andy. That place was DDB during one of it's many golden eras. He played absolutely no role in the agency's greatness, but still managed to create work he and his VW, Walkers and Marmite clients still love to this day.
Soon after Fallon London set up and made Andy and his partner their first creatives. Whilst there he created populist work for the BBC, Skoda, Sony and Timex. This time he played a slightly more central role in creating a golden era for Fallon.
Later he moved on to Mother where he continued his passion for generating fame and success for brands. Most proudly he did the "dehydrated-noodle-double" when he managed to create iconic work for both Pot Noodle AND Supernoodles.
His next step across London was to become ECD of Saatchi & Saatchi. Where he launched the new brand EE after the merger of Orange and T-Mobile and Creative Directed the Wall's "Dog in a Box" series. In his final year he led the agency to become the UK's second most awarded at Cannes.
Since October 2017 he has been the CCO and part of a new leadership team for TBWALondon.
Along his travels he's collected many awards but the one he's most proud of is this recognition from his Mum:
"I hate adverts. Apart from the adverts Andy does".
