Gearóid 'Ged' Carroll Interview(s)

Before I worked in ? advertising ?, I served an ? apprenticeship ? in plant process engineering. My old gaffer who was responsible for me had a few sayings. One of which was practice sharpens skill. By being a judge, I hope that I am helping people within the industry around the world to sharpen their skill. Seeing great challenging work and asking myself how it fits the customer and client needs in turn, helps further sharpen my skill as a strategist. TL;DR altruist generosity ?

Strategy has the Effies BUT its focus is larger than creativity with a major focus on efficiency and effectiveness rather the creative process. Strategy always provides the 'assist' with single-minded insight and creative JOTBD but is never the 'goal scorer' to use an American sports stats metaphor. I think that creativity is not only about the creative, but also the context where the creative is placed - which brings in the disciplines of project management's orchestration, production's craft and media planning. I think this is going to become far more important as we go towards a post-social era.

A really interesting question. Leading is probably the wrong phrase to use, but there are markets that are under-estimated. Thailand and the Philippines have well-deserved reputations for emotional storytelling. Year after year when I look at lunar new year adverts Malaysia hits well above its weight given the size of the market.

Japan has been consistently delighting advertising folk for the past five decades.

Probably a better question to ask me after I have been through this year's award entries.

With everything that's going on, I think we'll need more humour. Trends within the advertising industry are also leaning towards a better mix of formats. As an industry we over-index on social vs. attention, efficiency and effectiveness for large brands. So we've seen a renaissance in OOH amongst other formats. There is also a return to basics: creative consistency, fluent objects, the power of storytelling and humour. Finally consumers are more interested in consuming more longer form audio and video content, so what a creative execution might look like I hope is very different.

Be single-minded in terms of category consideration. My biggest criticism last year on many of the entries was that a given creative was being put in for consideration for the wrong category. And it was the same entries doing it over-and-over again. If it isn't relevant it's just going to get ignored or get under the skin of the judges. In the same way that a poorly placed ad that is slapped all over the place without consideration would have a similar effect in the real world. Rant over: I wish everyone the best of luck, finally don't be disheartened. All of the work was of a high standard, choosing winners is hard.

In the widest creative sense I am working my way through veteran Hong Kong film director Johnnie To's back catalogue; some of his works like Breaking News feel like exceptionally contemporary given our media environment. A couple of creatives using AI in a really smart way are Omar Karim aka @arthur_chance on instagram and the Dor Brothers. Agency work-wise VCCP's immersive installing for Transport for London and a small Malaysian shop called Days Studios who did a fantastic job producing a Chinese New ad for a cosmetic treatment clinic Aglow Studio - not what you'd call a big client yet it felt like a bigger production than many large brands. Go Google the ad 'hiss of prosperity' and watch it on YouTube.