DOA as in Dead on Arrival. There is virtually no coverage of them anywhere. Nothing in the NYTimes advertising section, nothing in WSJ's advertising section, nothing in USA Todays, etc. Even AdWeek's coverage (having the same parent as Clios you would thing they promote the crap out of it) is a mere button on the homepage and a few stories and 6 photos. "6 Photos", damn they had more art work of Mr. Clean and The M&M twins during their Advertising Week of NY coverage. It begs the question.....
Are the Clio Awards dead?
Are all of the industry ego-stroke awards dead?
Has Al Gore killed the award by inventing the Internet?
If you are interested...here's Adweek's Clio coverage.
And here's the rest....
hey...i work for the clio and like your blog a lot, a few quick notes: since january 06, there have been about 240 articles about the clios (synidated reuters story picked up natinally in washington post and other papers, ny times, fast company, etc.), in the past few weeks leading up to the festival/during/immediately after, there were about 45 stories that i've seen so far...tons of international coverage (it's an international festival, 60% of entries come from outside the US) in the top pubs (cb news, w&v, horizont, latin spots, b&t, campaign briefs, campaign, etc.)...stuart elliott wrote about it on the online ny times, usually doesn' cover ad awards at all. adweek made it their cover story this past week and plans feature coverage this coming week...and since clios are owned by vnu (parent of adweek), the crain comunnicatons pubs (ad age, creativity) have a policy of not ever covering clio...and usa today is a sponsor of cannes, so same deal there.
we're not perfect, but we're doing some decent things...speakers inlcuded bruce mau and cirque du soliel marketing guy talking about how to grow and maintain creative spark, recognized a lot of decent people (bob greenberg gets lifetime achievement and he isn't even a trad ad guy, that should could for something, unilever axe an edgy choice for advertiser of the year) and great work, and both the number of entries and attendance grew in 2006. sure we'd like to grow but we don't want to be another cannes...prefer to be a festival for creative inspiration as opposed to being taken over by 9,000 clients/account execs and turned into a mob scene trade fair. instead of old-school creatives on the jury, we've got guys who are doing the cutting edge work now, not five year ago. always lots of room for improvement, but we're taking chances and changing as the industry does. increased festival attendance (1,000 up from 750 last year) and award entries (19,000) hopefully mean we're connecting to some degree. thanks.
Posted by: Just Me | May 21, 2006 at 01:01 PM
Fair enough. I was just struck by the relative low coverage by major media. That said, based on your factual reply, I might have to rethink my notion.
Posted by: PS | May 22, 2006 at 12:48 PM
Here's a good picture of what happened at the Clios this year. It was a lot of fun... :)
http://ihaveanidea.org/clios2006/live.php
Posted by: Ignacio | June 12, 2006 at 08:55 PM
I agree with "Just me" and Ignacio. First of all in terms of number of award entries Cannes and Clio are on the same level...and it terms of the Festival the Clios are 6 years old and Cannes 40 something...Cannes had became literally a trade fair...and Clio is THE festival FOR Creatives...that means you meet creatives, party with creatives, listen to creatives...result= CREATIVE INSPIRATION.
We feel like guests, the festival is more intimate and we actually make friendships from all over the world at the festival.
So I have to disagree...Clios DOA? no way!
Posted by: Ana | June 17, 2006 at 04:41 AM