D&AD AGREES TO ALLOW AUSSIE/KIWI/ASIAN JUDGES

One good thing that came out of Cannes for Asia, Australia and New Zealand was meeting up with a delegation from D&AD. At the meeting on the Croisette were CB's Michael Lynch and his partner Kim Shaw (representing Asia) together with three of Australasia's top creative directors: Nobby (Saatchi & Saatchi Sydney), Mike O’Sullivan (Saatchi & Saatchi Auckland) - both pictured above - and Duster (Clemenger BBDO, Wellington).

The meeting was called by D&AD to discuss concerns raised in current articles in Campaign Brief and CB Asia that D&AD was British biased. D&AD obviously agreed, because they brought good news to the meeting, the main point being that they agreed next year to invite at least 3 judges (but preferably 6) from Australia, and two (preferably 3) from New Zealand.

These numbers will hopefully increase to 8 for Australia and 3 for New Zealand in 2008. In fact all countries entering significant amounts of work will benefit, with the number of judges invited reflecting their level of entries. As a result, the UK will end up with around 35 percent of the juries in 2008 from their current 85 percent.

Based on current entry proportions, in 2008 the UK will have 91 judges, the USA will have 46, Germany will have 24, Singapore and South Africa will have 11, India and Australia will have 8, Brazil, France, Canada and Japan will have 5, and 12 countries, including New Zealand, will have 3 judges. The Asian countries with 3 judges by 2008 are Malaysia, China/Hong Kong and Thailand.

These proportions will change according to entries received the previous year, so it is quite conceivable that in future the USA could be the dominant entrant, as they are at Cannes. It is therefore in the region's best interest to make D&AD on top of the awards list in future, to ensure a good slice of the jury action.