Miami Vice

Television work, traditionally the sexiest, most talked-about aspect of any awards show, took a back seat at the 43rd annual Clio awards this year. The radio and television jury awarded no television Grand Clio, while Fallon's BMW Films Internet-based campaign won two Grand Clios. The show was held last Monday through Wednesday in Miami.BMW Films, which centers on short films made by top directors such as Guy Ritchie and Ang Lee, is on a remarkable streak after winning a double Best of Show earlier this month at the One Show and One Show Interactive. It took nine Clio statues, including the Internet and innovative-media Grand Clios and several awards for production details. The work was a clear winner for the print and poster jury—which judged the innovative-media categories—according to jury chairman Steve Simpson, a partner and creative director at Goodby Silverstein & Partners, San Francisco. "To me, it was the by far the best thing we saw," he says. Simpson noted the campaign's sly use of crowd-pleasing elements—such as reckless driving and incontinence jokes—that would never get past TV censors, as well as the fact that "it appeared when everybody else had lost their nerve about Internet advertising."To David Lubars, president and executive creative director of Fallon, Minneapolis, the format was a logical way to reach a difficult target. "The BMW customer doesn't see a lot of television, travels a lot—but has a really powerful computer," he says. "If these people are unreachable [through traditional means], you have to find new ways to get them to reach out to you. People might say we rocked the boat. In reality, the ocean rocked the boat."But is the campaign an anomaly that few other clients would dish out the money to replicate? But the success of the short Internet film is hardly a threat to traditional advertising aimed at mass audiences, Lubars says, but the format can work well with other hard-to-reach targets, such as the 25-and-under crowd. In 1998, Fallon aired a six-minute Buddy Lee short at 3:55 in the morning on Comedy Central. Mass appeal, in fact, was what propelled DDB Chicago's Bud Light radio campaign to the top of the television and radio contest. Listening to the spots' humorous tributes to some of society's more bizarre characters, "the jury members were acting like consumers—they were laughing like hell," says jury chairman Marcello Serpa, executive creative director of Almap BBDO, São Paulo, Brazil. "We didn't have to rationalize liking it."The three spots, part of a campaign concept that originated in 2000, features an announcer who good-naturedly offers praises for people like Mr. Horsedrawn Carriage Driver. "You start your day with a 'Tip, tip!' and a 'Cheerio,' which is odd because you're from Brooklyn," he says, echoed by a background singer belting out, "Jolly old Brooklyn!" The judges saw no television work that they could unanimously agree was worthy of the prize, Serpa says. "It was not 100 percent," he explains. "A Grand Clio has to be 100 percent."The TV and radio jury did see fit to award 15 golds, up from 14 last year. (The total number of Clios awarded this year was 281, down from 372 in 2001.)Top gold winners included the BMW campaign and Nike's "Free style" from Wieden + Ken nedy, Port land, Ore., with two each. Other U.S. gold winners included the Fox Sports campaign from TBWA\Chiat\ Day, San Francisco, that warned people to beware of things made in October (the work also won silver honors at D&AD and the One Show). Doner in Southfield, Mich., took a gold for its animated Blockbuster campaign featuring Carl and Ray, and the Sony Wega spot "Kite" from Young & Rubicam, New York, also won a gold. International gold winners included Guinness' black-and-white spot "Dreamer," from Abbott Mead Vickers/BBDO, London. A Guinness drinker dreams that he gets a peek at the meaning of life—a secret not revealed to the viewer but one that causes the man to laugh hysterically in his sleep. The spot also won a bronze Lion at Cannes last year.Del Campo/Nazca Saatchi & Saatchi, Buenos Aires, won a gold for its Nutrasweet spot "Fake." A man is reading an article over breakfast and pauses to ask his wife, "Darling, it says here that 90 percent of women fake. Have you ever faked?" She assures him that he would be able to tell if she did, then turns around to fix his coffee. "Sugar or Nutrasweet?" she asks. He requests sugar, but she pours in a packet of Nutrasweet—he, naturally, doesn't notice the difference.In the print and poster contest, BMP DDB's Grand Clio win was not as easily decided as the other Grand winners, according to Simpson. The London shop's Harvey Nichols campaign shows women proudly displaying clothing bought at the store's winter sale, along with the apparent injuries they received from fighting over the goods with other shoppers. The runner-up was a Guinness campaign from Ogilvy & Mather, Singapore, with close-ups of women's bodies framed to look like glasses of Guinness accompanied by the question, "What's on your mind?" "The jury wanted to award the retail campaign—that can be such a crap assignment," says Simpson, adding that there was some amicable disagreement on the issue among the judges. It was the second print win in a row for BMP DDB, which took a Grand Clio last year for a Volkswagen campaign.The Clio Awards is owned by Adweek parent company VNU.

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