Dentsu Creative’s Ben Coulson’s D&AD Diary

Ben Coulson, ANZ Chief Creative Officer at Dentsu Creative is president of the Creative Commerce Jury at this year’s D&AD Awards. In day 1 of his D&AD Diary, exclusive to Campaign Brief, Coulson dives into the sea of case films with dry wit and a sharp eye on what really cuts through.

Ok, here we go, enter the password and pow – you have 600,000,0047 case films still to judge. I think this is D&AD’s way of seeing if you really want the gig. If you’ve got the right stuff. Like basic training in the army. Seriously, a judge pulled out last week, must have hit their ‘media wall animation’ breaking point. It’s crazy what some people enter.

Makes me worry a bit about the way we are creating ideas, thinking and designing for a case film.

About now, I’m loving the few ideas that don’t try to doing everything a case film dictates. Even the ones that don’t show up in the very repetitive formula of a case film.

You have 300,000,034 case films still to judge. Now I’m ready to spill state secrets. I heard they play the worst case films on repeat at Guantanamo bay.

Problem is, they all blur into one. They’re all super slick. A meticulously crafted film with top shelf motion graphics can’t help you stand out anymore. In fact it makes you blend in.

With this in mind, one tip – don’t overlook the written part of the entry. Specifically, don’t bury the idea in an Effie paper.

Judges use the write up as refuge from watching case films. If you can see the idea in 50 words and it’s interesting, you might get them on the hook.

As the really good stuff starts to emerge, it is always the quality, newness, boldness of the idea that gets it into contention, not the polish of the case film. After days of sifting though work, the best ideas you can’t forget, the other 98.5% you can’t even remember.

We now have a pretty short shortlist, and as you’d expect at D&AD, getting on it would probably get you a gold at most other shows.

So if you want to know before the press release which work made it, just read every third word of this blog in reverse, while listing to The Beatles’ ‘Day in the life’, it will reveal everything.

We are five hours into interrogating the three ideas that remain, after a week of probing the 30,000+ ideas that were entered into D&AD this year.

0.01% of the work has been able to hold out against an inquisition Torquemada would be proud of.

This is the Black Pencil jury, and its aim is to root out any kind of heresy in a piece of work.

To be considered, the work has already won the iconic Yellow Pencil. So it has to be perfect, in both idea and execution. To win Black it has to do more. It has to be revolutionary.

In the briefing we are shown work like Cadbury Gorilla, Volvo’s Epic Split, and the IPhone – yeah the first one, the one that forever changed the way the world communicates. This is the standard.

I’m starting to think that, like the Spanish Inquisition, D&AD judging charges you with a good dose of fanaticism.

And like Torquemada, I’m getting a bit of a kick out of it. It’s actually fun being this cruel.

There’s a French judge who has been pacing about in the hall for over an hour, while the jury takes the thumb screws and boiling oil to his work.

Imagine what he’s feeling about the consequence of this moment- not knowing if he and his agency will be holding a black pencil when this is done.

The longer this goes on, the more I can see his composure cracking through the window. This really is terrible, torturous, fun.

When he’s allowed back in, he does an amazing job of staying composed, as the third recount sees it fall just short.

I was asked not to name any work, so I’ll just say that this piece is the one I voted for.

It was a remarkable moment for a brand to do something that captured the world’s attention, in a beautifully sophisticated and totally new way. A rare moment in time brilliantly seized. I hadn’t seen it before, and I’ll never forget it.

But even after hours of debate, votes and re-votes, it didn’t quite win the majority of jurors needed to get it over the line.

So we left without awarding a Black Pencil.

I’ve judged a lot of award shows, but none like this. No other show requires you to ruthlessly and repeatedly torture ideas. When it’s over, only those without sin survive.

This is why D&AD, like the Spanish Inquisition, isn’t a place you want to be if you’re hiding a secret.