Award winners have been announced for this year’s “Consumers’ Tameninatta Advertising – For the consumers’ good Advertising” award.
I guess many of you may not know this award, but this year’s was already 49th.
METI Award, say Grand Prix, went to Panasonic Nano-e’s newspaper ads, Toyo Exterior Support Rail (handrail)’s magazine ad, and Toshiba’s company ad on TV. I could not find the first two on web, but found Toshiba’s light bulb CM on YouTube.
“1890, Japan’s first light bulb was made by Toshiba. Since then, we have thrown lights over your house and your town. Toshiba is planning to terminate production of incandescent lights、aiming at 2010. As the first company to make light bulb, we wanted to be the first to make a decision not to make. In the future, we shift our effort to produce energy saving lights such as Neo Pole Series (light-bulb style fluorescent lamp) and LED lamps. Long and strong cherished hope to light bulb. But, it is longer and stronger for the earth. Toshiba.”
It seems quite popular CM. It holds you to say “A-ha” at the end.
When I myself watched this on TV, I rushed to make a complete list of types of incandescent lights at home and bought a lot of them to stock. I do not like fluorescent light. Well, I know I should not have acted anti-eco way… But, the advertising indeed made me re-act, and think “OK, after using up the stock, let me switch to LED”. It is a good piece of advertising. Poor excuse...
So what is “mixed feeling and questions”? There are a few.
To start with, I have a big “?” to its name of “Tameninatta - For consumers’ good” (while I am not confident if this is translating its original nuance). It means the world is full of those advertising that are not for their good? No? It means it is selecting “the best” from good ones? OK, I was chopping and playing on logic, I understand. And there are plenty that are not necessarily targeting to consumers. You are right. Some are for shareholders, for recruiting, for supply chain, for internal communications, and there are others, too. But, “Tameninatta – for their good” reads like looking down to them. Oh, it is just a bad try of faultfinding? Excuse me.
Fact is, when I was working for marketing/advertising in manufacturer, that receiving this award was a very big credit. As it was consumer goods company, it was always fulfilling to see advertising making an impact to numbers, and when consumers told us “It’s a good commercial” or “It made me like the brand”, I felt that all the hard work had completely been paid off. And if the award of “For consumers’ good” chooses my work, it is a big honor. The biggest reward, because I suppose it must be selected based on research among lots of consumers.
What? They do not choose that way? What do you mean?
Let’s take a look at judges… Final judges are university professors and reps from consumer organizations. Looks reasonable, so far. 6 out of 12 are women. Sounds thoughtful.
So, these people go through all the pieces of advertising, in addition to TV CM’s, where approx. 1,000 new spots are born a month, from newspaper, magazine, radio, and web. Is it so? Not. It says they review applied ones. I see. And they have pre-screening, first…
If I look at the list of judges for pre-screening, it appears 7 out of 20 are college/university students and 4 are university lecturers, so it means more than half are from college/university. What… These pre-judges select about 600 from all the 3,500 applications. He~~~~, what a hell…
“Mixed feeling” is, by the way, also coming from my observation that, while clients are in general very pleased and honored to get this award, somehow, Creatives often give “a bitter smile”. Not all of them, off course. I saw some showed great appreciation to it.
But, there seems something for “a bitter smile” in advertising industry.
It might be too much of my suspicion, but it seems to me “It may be a great award for consumers’ and clients’ good, but it is not always for Creatives’ good”.
Are they having doubt to its selection process? It looks true, unlike other advertising awards, they indeed do not invite judges from advertising industry or creative field.
Or, because “It does not judge its artistic value as a piece of work”? Well, advertising is not made for an artistic expression as a primary purpose, though.
Not going to that extreme, because “It does not evaluate its originality/novelty of advertising executions”? I kinda understand that impression, vaguely though.
Or, because “It has some Dasai (not cool) impression/image”? Yeah, I understand that. What leaves that impression, then?
Taking a look at all the finalists, you may find some consistency across. Maybe of same old dramatic devises/set-ups or cliché. And, well although I cannot find exact word to describe this, I think there are quite a few “Preachy/Enlightenmentism (?)” stories, “Interfering” speaks, or “Hey, ain’t I doing my best to be good for society” type of telling. Is this the reason for your bitter smile? (At least, Panasonic’s works, a regular member of this award, are still on its Panasocic-like enlightenment tonality.)
OK. Let me talk to some Creative guys soon.
“O.”
