Rebecca Carrasco’s Andy’s Diary – Day Two

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 Two

Hello Jetlag.

As much as I’d like to be out with the other judges having cocktailsand hors d’oeuvres at Le Foret, I think I might have to settle forpassing out and just being grateful that it didn’t happen during thejudging.

Luckily for me, every time the unicorns came floating into the roomatop of fudge-flavoured rainbows crawling with crayfish playingfire-throwing trombones, a great piece of work jolted me back to myseat. Which made me happy for two reasons. There was quite a bit ofgreat work. And I avoided waking up with a moustache.

As for the work, well, a few more things started to surface today. Forone, you could see the effect of the GFC. And that’s not always a badthing. Having to be frugal means having to be inventive. No one isgoing to knock back a decent budget but if it’s not there, it becomespart of the problem, which becomes part of the brief, which becomespart of the idea. And interesting problems coupled with interestingclients make for interesting work.

You have a car company buying a behavioural idea from its advertisingagency instead of an ad campaign – an idea to assure its Americancustomers that if they lose their job during the GFC and can’t pay fortheir car, they can just give it back. Meanwhile, in another part ofthe world the GFC went unnoticed because the political system renderedits currency worthless a long time ago. So marketing messages wereprinted on real bank notes and run offshore to highlight the desperateneed for a voice in a country where currency is worth less than paper.

With the first round of preliminary judging out of the way, we sattogether as a group and continued to distil the selection of work,voting anonymously. Again, I have no idea what will actually make thecut at this stage but I’d be disappointed if a blind artist couldn’tmake a strong impression behind the wheel of a new car. I’d also arguethat Lance Armstrong’s last race is probably one of his finestperformances; he just didn’t take his eyes off that road. I think thewriting could be on the floor for that one. I’d also be surprised if afew of the judges weren’t considering a job as a caretaker right now.And there is this man who smells like a man who smells nothing likeGouda.

But there is always tomorrow.