Rebecca Carrasco’s Andy’s Diary – Day Three

RebeccaCarrasco is in New Orleans this week judging the annual internationalANDY Awards, one of four Aussies on the 24 person international jury,who has kindly agreed to write a daily diary exclusively for CB.Campaign Brief,Campaign Brief Asia and Bestads are international media partners of theANDY Awards, which has an all-star jury, chaired by Ty Montague, chiefcreative officer, JWT North America and Michael Lebowitz, founder andCEO, Big Spaceship.

Day Three

If this were a PS game you’d have one life, and if you couldn’t hit the ground running while firing a bazooka you ain’t never coming back. The end.

While yesterday appeared productive, it turns out we needed to getthrough the other half of yesterday’s work this morning. And so beganthe day. Naturally, in that kind of compression chamber, the mostchallenged entries are long format. It doesn’t matter if it’s a productinnovation, branded content, a website, an integrated campaign orsomething so weird and wonderful that it almost defies description;it’s got 60 seconds. Game on. So forget what category you’re entering,you still need a 60-second ad to sell your work. The good news is ifyou can fire that bazooka on the fly and hit your target quickly, youdo get to keep fighting. But you need to create an audience before youcan sell in the idea.

The other thing that came up in conversation today was the fact that somuch work is now over-executed. We’re definitely smack-bang in themiddle of the ‘create an idea platform from which we can executethrough every conceivable media’ era and with a great idea smartlyexecuted, you’ll probably land a winner. But with the focus now beingmore and more on getting across as many channels as possible, the ideaoften gets forced into places it doesn’t belong, or the media takes theplace of the idea completely. And when that happens we just end upcreating new integrated ways to annoy people. It’s nothing we don’talready know, but the realisation does smack you on the head like anACME anvil when you’re exposed to this volume of work within the spaceof a few days.

Overall the work today wasn’t as strong, but the jury did split intotwo rooms after lunch (we weren’t going to get through it all any otherway) so I didn’t see everything. And we’re still only in the 2nd roundof culling things down. A few nice print ideas have started to surfacethough (we should see more of the print tomorrow I’d imagine) and ifyou’re not picky about what fruit you take from the orchard it woulddefinitely pay to hang out under the radio trees.

As for the nightlife, well we’re starting to blend in. Sort of. Afterbeing prepped with feathered masks, coloured beads (yes, those colouredbeads) and a few too many cocktails, we marched down Bourbon Street,New Orleans style – with a police escort and a marching band (see footage below). I thinkit’s fair to say that the locals really didn’t know what hit them, butI’ve no doubt they will be taking all necessary measures to ensure itdoesn’t happen again. And after a spicy Creole dinner in the FrenchQuarter (and I have to say the jambalaya was pretty amazing evenwithout the shrimp, chicken, ham or spicy sausage) it was ontoPreservation Hall for the kind of jazz you only see in those black andwhite films from the 20’s. 

This is one weird and wonderful town.

Bourbon Street march.AVI