DDB boss says local agency will save ‘hundreds of thousands of dollars’ from awards cull
‘End the obsession with awards’: O’Halloran
The head of DDB’s Australia and New Zealand operations has said the agency is set to save “hundreds of thousands of dollars” as part of its decision to cut back its involvement in global award shows.
This week the agency group’s global creative head Amir Kassaei announced the Omnicom-owned agency network would be scaling back involvement in awards shows globally and look to find new ways to measure their creative output based on how much their ideas had benefitted clients.
Chairman and CEO of DDB Australia and New Zealand Marty O’Halloran told Mumbrella the move was driven by the desire to get off the never-ending award treadmill and was about “drawing a line in the sand”, as well as focussing their people on client results.
Each year the larger agencies in Sydney enter into cannes between 100 and 400 entries into one show – Cannes Lions. On an average year thats 200 x $1500 per entry = $300,000 for JUST 1 AWARDS show.
Wonder what the really big agencies spend?
This is a great move from DDB – even if they cut their entry levels by 10% thye’ll save millions around the world.
Check the numbers.
That’s rubbish. The bigger agencies are more likely to enter about 20-30. You can all entries on the Cannes website.
This article and Amir’s comments just show how stuck in the past DDB management are. They’re still talking about scam. All of the work entered into Direct, Promo or Integrated categories must feature results and prove that the work has solved a tangible business problem. It’s the difference between winning and being thrown out of the category.
Most agencies worked this out years ago and only enter the work clients are really happy about. Isn’t that the only work that gets made and run for real?
So why were DDB still producing work that clients weren’t happy with?
This does nothing to make me question awards and everything to question shoddy business practices.
The truth is that DDB has failed to sell/conceive really greatwork for/to for clients like McDonalds over the last few years. This has embarrassed both the agency and the clients. In an attempt to remain relevant they have fallen back on scams etc to get the awards numbers up.
This is a lack of focus on great work for real clients is nothing to do with Award shows. If they had great work for their large clients it would be business as usual.
This whole move is simply scapegoating awards to cover up for their own internal lack of focus.
Great to see they are getting their act together, but don’t try to make out that agencies with great work moving the dial forward for their clients, are in the same boat as you DDB.
Just wondering if this isn’t simply happening because McDonalds is threatening a pitch. If they’re not, they should be. Their brand is awful, especially in the states!
All they’re doing is not entering scam work. Whoopty shit. Amazing.
1992 is spot on.
This feels like a press release from a decade ago.
What ‘fake’ stuff is winning? Not worth it. Mumbo will be onto you already. (Like the fake McDonald’s double page DDB did few years back).
Most agencies already implemented these internal rules years ago. Sounds like Marty O’ just wants to impress Amir.
1,500 Lions awarded at Cannes last year. They’re becoming expensive paperweights.
Clients would be horrified if they realised how much agency resource is diverted away from doing work for them to working on awards entries, especially around deadline time. And how much emphasis inside agencies is in developing work designed to impress awards juries, rather than answering the client brief.
Maybe he just saw my speech?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uevbPqes7Wox
nah, he’s right @Saatchi’s >100 000 was put aside just for award-entering… maybe also look at Ricky Gervais’ comments on the Globes for some balloon-pricking commentary and star-fucking observations
Where exactly is that line in the sand being drawn? What a load of nonsense. So they’re entering awards but not as many? Which ones arn’t they entering? Why have they been wasting hundred of thousands of dollars entering awards with work that doesn’t deliver results? That seems irresponsible and negligent. Surely some one should be held accountable for that? Issuing a headline grabbing piece of generalities seems like the negligence continues.
Work from DDB Australia has been so poor of late they wouldn’t have anything worth entering! The global announcement is a godsend for O’Halloran and crew. What will they hide behind when the client results don’t come through either?!