Steve

Steve DildarianRadio Lions jury memberCopywriter, Goodby, Silverstein & PartnersMonday, June 20: The day got off to a rough start with the following quote: "There's no fast-forward button, so you have to listen to each spot in its entirety."Not what I needed to hear at 8:30 in the morning, jet-lagged and hungover, wearing yesterday's clothes because my bag was still in London.Anyway, the first day of judging wasn't that painful. The language barrier, which everyone was worried about, doesn't seem to be a problem at all. They've got English transcripts for everything, so it's kind of like watching a movie with subtitles. Even the crazier stuff, from India or Japan, made perfect sense.As for the work itself, it's a pretty typical breakdown so far—90 percent of the spots are horrible, and you can't even picture someone filling out an entry form to send it to an awards show. Then there's a bunch of decent spots that may or may not make the short list. Then there's one or two spots that you actually remember at the end of the day.Hopefully those are the only ones we'll be giving Lions to, but who knows. The way the judging is conducted, we'll have no idea what the other judges are thinking until Wednesday. Right now we're just sitting in the same room with our individual iPods and headphones. The room is silent, and every 20 minutes or so someone laughs out loud and everyone wonders why.Tuesday, June 21: I've now heard the following ideas in at least three languages: people talking after inhaling helium; ads that bleep out curse words; ironic use of the movie trailer guy; Godfather parodies; spots that begin with "so-and-so presents..." and sounds morphing into other sounds. There are also a lot of penis jokes, mostly in French.When you listen to so many ads back to back, you start to see the problem with radio—no one uses it as a branding device. It's always tactical: there to deliver the details. The most-effective campaigns in recent years (Hollywood Video, Bud Light, Thoroughbred Racing, etc.) use radio in a different way. These are big, sustainable ideas that exist mostly to deliver brand positioning and little else. It's not surprising that these campaigns stand out. They're not just doing a better job than the other ads, they're doing a different job.We've heard a lot of good one-offs in these first two days, but as far as great campaigns, you can count them on one hand—even if you've been in a horrible accident that has left you with only three fingers.Wednesday, June 22: As a general rule of thumb, if you need to start judging radio at 8 a.m., don't go out drinking with Gerry Graf until 6 a.m. Anyway, we've whittled down the short list from 1,000 entries to about 150. There's still a lot of dodgy stuff (rap songs in Spanish, screaming Germans, etc.) but overall it's starting to look decent. There's no clear buzz on a Grand Prix winner yet, but we'll see what happens tomorrow, because tomorrow is arguing day. Until now it's been very civil: A group of professionals with headphones on, nodding politely and saying things like "bon jour," "hola" and "what's it like living in Madrid?" Tomorrow I'm sure at least one person will call me an asshole.Thursday, June 23: Well, no one called me an asshole. That's a good thing.We chose a handful of spots to give Lions to, but I've got to say, the pickings were slim. I was hoping to find some unknown gems out there, but they just don't exist. There are a lot of good ideas, and funny moments, but people just don't seem to know how to package it.The only big campaign ideas are from the U.S., and even those are several years old. The only thing I liked that I hadn't heard before was for Starburst. It's not exactly a breakthrough campaign, but the spots are well performed and unexpected.In the end we gave out very few golds, a handful of silvers and about 20 bronze. I kind of wish there was a Lion just below bronze. Like tin or aluminum. We would have given out hundreds of them.And just for the record ... I did not vote for the Brazilian rap song.

Brand Marketing

Steve

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