The festival’s effort to increase the number of professionals on the jury from various countries was reflected in the discussions, say Brazilians
More diversity on the juries, explosion of energy with face-to-face debates, few works using artificial intelligence and how important it is to have a festival like the D&AD Awards, which celebrates creativity and craft. These were some of the insights of the Brazilian judges in this year’s edition of the festival, held last week in London.
For Rodrigo Sobral, who has lived in England for 20 years and is now Oliver’s global CCO, there was an explosion of energy with the return of face-to-face activities at D&AD. It’s been really cool to see people’s enthusiasm and optimism, because a lot of people had Burnout in the last three years, he says.
Regarding the works, Sobral says that there are a lot of good things. According to him, Brazil did well in Direct, the category in which he was a judge. It was a record for entries this year. We started the trial with about 600 entries. Brazil was very successful in Direct. The obsession with the idea was very clear with brilliant execution at all points of contact.
The creative highlighted that the area has evolved with the fact of being able to personalize messages to people more and more with the use of technology at scale. But we haven’t seen many works that made use of artificial intelligence. Clearly, everything is very much in its infancy, in the testing phase. Nobody knows legally what they can do. I think this is holding it up a bit. We saw a lot of Midjourney applications, but the impression remains that the image is not real, ponders Sobral.
J Dani Ribeiro, Publicis Brasil ECD, Radio & Audio judge, raised an important question about craft. We are at a craft festival, where craft and ideas are the meaning of everything. And I think that, many times, craft is being placed at the end of the queue of our day-to-day priorities, because the means are more fluid, faster, and the content is less time on the air, and from that it is understood that you don’t need to invest so much in crafting. And we know that craft has incredible strength, the aesthetics are very engaging. The aesthetic reflects our culture and I think we can’t lose that. And I’m not just talking about the graphic craft, but about adapting the language, observes the publicist.
Regarding the works in Radio & Audio, Dani revealed that the jury found it interesting/concerning the fact that only one piece in the commercial subcategory 30 seconds was shortlisted and, even so, it did not survive the shortlist discussion. Meanwhile, in the Entertainment subcategory, the volume of high-quality ideas was high.
This contrast gives us a way forward, after all awards are a record of where the market is going. We see how podcasts and entertainment are growing and this reflects how the radio is no longer the great means to propagate audio as an engagement tool. a sign of the times. We just need to understand the behavior and start thinking of sound more and more as a driver of ideas and messages on other platforms, says Dani, pointing out that Brazil did not perform well in the category.
The only Brazilian jury president at this year’s D&AD, Keka Morelle reveals that she sought to conduct conversations with the Art Direction judges in order to award works in which art direction played a strategic role in the execution of the idea and not just the aesthetics.
According to her, the jury opened an important discussion about what is a visual approach for a brand nowadays. We live in a society that has multiple perspectives and when a brand wants to connect with a culture, art direction, visuals and aesthetics are very important. We had a lot of talk about cultural contexts. It was a jury with people from different places, so that was very interesting, because the perspectives were very different, says the CCO of WT Brasil. It was a milestone in my career to be president of the jury of Art Direction, because my background is art direction, points out Keka.
Diversity
For the first time on the jury of a festival, the director of the scene Thatiane Almeida says that she ended the judgment in Direction very happy, because the final list of the category was very representative and diverse. Not only in terms of representativeness and diversity in relation to the filmmakers, but also in the languages used, she revealed, adding that the jury was also diverse, which made the difference.
We didn’t agree, but we happened to reach a consensus to award films that make a difference to the world in the sense of having a cultural impact. a category very much about craft, language, but naturally we prioritized the messages that matter to the world in some way for different reasons. Everyone left inspired by causes, places and issues relevant to the world beyond aesthetics and language, says the director of the production company MagMacx. About the Brazilian participation, she gives a spoiler: There were few Brazilian films, but they went far.
The diversity of the jury, with the presence of creatives from different countries of the world, with different views and backgrounds, was fundamental to enrich the debates in the Experential category, shared Ded Laurentino, CCO of Ogilvy UK.
The Experience category is very broad, ranging from relationship marketing, which can be a medium, a digital service or a real-life event. As it is very broad, it needs to observe several points of view. It’s great to have a jury with a global vision, there were people from Asia, Taiwan, India, Latin America, the United States, England, Romania and Holland. Each person brings their experience, their way of seeing that same piece, analyzing the different points, he reflects.
According to him, the jury ended up awarding a range of pieces balanced between the commercial work of selling a product and the social responsibility work of a company. There are Brazilian pieces awarded in the category, but I expected more. I think that Experience is not an area where Brazil excels in terms of quantity. Quality, yes, so much so that there are award-winning Brazilian pieces, observes Ded.
The creative highlights that he judged more than 400 pieces, but that there were no cases with artificial intelligence. There was, of course, use of augmented reality technology, but specifically AI we didn’t see. We need to understand technology better to use it safely for brands. For now, we’re only doing experimental use at Ogilvy London, he says.
Read the full story in the May 15 print edition
