- Eleftheria Parpis

The results of the "Elect the Jury" contest are in, and the final list for the 2010 International Andy Awards has some new names, such as graphic designer Shepard Fairey, among those already well familiar on the industry awards show circuit.

Andy co-chairmen Ty Montague, co-president, CCO of JWT North America, and Michael Lebowitz, founder and CEO of Big Spaceship, said, while the process may not have been perfect, they were pleased with the results of what they described as an "experiment" for the first awards show to turn the selection process over to the community.

"I'm really proud of the results," said Lebowitz, who pointed to jury members selected like Fairey and Vivian Rosenthal, co-founder of digital design house Tronic Studios, who may not otherwise have been selected to judge an advertising awards show.

In addition to Fairey and Rosenthal, the 25 judges are:

• Mark Tutssel, CCO, Leo Burnett
• Pete Favat, CCO, Arnold
• P.J. Pereira, CCO, Pereira & O'Dell
• Erik Vervroegen, cd, Goodby, Silverstein & Partners
• Rick Boyko, director, VCU Brandcenter
• Tony Granger, global CCO, Young & Rubicam
• Rei Inamoto, CCO, AKQA
• Jose Molla, co-founder, ecd, la comunidad
• Bob Moore, CCO, Publicis
• Rebecca Carrasco, partner, ecd, Colman/Rasic/Carrasco
• Leo Premutico, co-founder, cd, Johannes Leonardo
• Suzana Apelbaum, partner, CCO, REDE
• Rob Schwartz, CCO, TBWA\Chiat\Day
• Ashley Ringrose, co-founder, Soap Creative
• Remi Babinet, founder, global cd, BETC Euro RSCG
• Jeff Benjamin, ecd, interactive, Crispin Porter + Bogusky
• Alessandra Lariu, svp, digital group, McCann Erickson
• Juan Cabral, cd, Fallon London
• Prasoon Joshi, executive chairman, McCann Erickson, India
• Nick Law, evp, CCO, R/GA
• Hashem Bajwa, director of digital strategy, Droga5
• Mimi Cook, cd, Apple
• Mark Waites, founding partner, joint cd, Mother London

The jury was determined after five weeks of nominations and voting on electthejury.com, which received more than 35,000 unique visitors, with 100,000 total visits and more than 37,000 votes for 150 jurors.

"The system we put in place was really successful on a lot of levels," assessed Lebowitz, such as the international and digital/traditional mix of experts that made the final list. "I feel like we learned a lot."

Montague, concurred, adding that there were a lot of interesting discussions raised during the process and interesting campaigning from potential jurors, like TBWA's Schwartz, who started a blog discussing the best work of the year after it launched. "I was really psyched about the tone of the campaigning and also the altitude of the conversation. It remained really high," he said. "People got into the idea and were having exactly the kind of conversation they should be having: What is the right mix? Where are we going as an industry? What are the important milestones? Is this a good idea? What might we do to make it better?"

On the BBH Labs blog, Kevin Roddy, CCO of BBH in New York, who was on the nomination list, wrote, "As the current chairman of The One Club, I was jealous that we hadn't thought of it, but after a little more reflection, I began to think differently."

Roddy was clear to express that he was sharing his personal point of view rather than anything that has to do with his association with The One Club. "I began to worry that the flaws in 'Elect the Jury' were actually creating the opposite effect of democratizing the selection process," he wrote, explaining that the flaws include depending on people to vote from memory rather than experience, that the process encourages nominees to "stump for votes" and allows people to vote repeatedly. "All three of these things make 'crowdsourcing,' in my opinion, "crowd steering."

Montague said while they feel good about the final results, they did acknowledge that some contenders may not have gotten their fair due by the sheer fact that they were from smaller organizations that were outvoted by those from large agency networks. "It's a scale problem," he said. "We learned ways to make it better the next time around and it will be better the next time around."

Judging for the April show will take place in February.

See also: "Crowd Control: Does Crowdsourcing Pay Off"