The champagne corks have been popping in St Kilda Road this week as the victorious news has rolled in from the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. If this were the Olympics they'd be organising the tickertape parade.
The hit of the festival was a commercial we first saw last year: Metro Transport's "Dumb way to die" animated jingle. This jolly ditty sings about decapitation, setting fire to your hair, being eaten by grizzly bears and piranhas, all to tell you lessons - obviously not known to many of our citizens - that it's pretty dozy to stand near the train track with your ear plugs in.
McCann Melbourne not only won the Grand Prix for Best Film but another four prix for PR, Direct, Radio and Integrated. An unprecedented five lions in the bag. This news has been broadcast wide now, but what caught my eye is that of the dozen gold lion and super lion awards, there was hardly any display of the "product", in the sense of a physical pack shot, in any of them.
Clemenger BBDO's Carlton Draught commercial - a very funny cops and robbers chase through the streets of Melbourne - displays the beers in every hand, as the whole cast runs, each holding a full glass of beer reverentially unspilled. But you barely glimpse the logo.
Metro Trains does not show off its gleaming trains or stations.
Dove has a wonderful commercial of women hiding their faces from candid home video shots, with the killer tag: "When did you stop thinking you're beautiful?" But no bar of soap on the bathroom sink.
Smart Car shows off what a rotten car it is for offroad driving, bogging on muddy tracks and drowning in streams. But how it comes into its own when you need to park in the city.
The point is that these advertisements worked brilliantly well, but they won because they were the very few that took risks.
I've been very critical of much of current advertising, finding it so dull and boring. And I ask, is it the clients' fault?
"Marketing teams are constantly asked to do more with less, that makes them risk averse," said Adrian Mills. He's Account Director for Metro at McCanns, so carries the duty of bringing the creatives' ideas and the client's budgets onto common ground.
Great ideas don't have to be expensive. Neither the Metro animation nor the Dove candid shots needed big budgets. But they do need strength and intelligence both from the agency and from the client. "There's a lot to be said for experienced heads in a room," said Mills. And he tipped his hat to a former rival, "Someone like Russell Howcroft knows how to work a room."
As you work with a client you develop trust in each other's teams and the good work starts to flow more easily.
One problem in recent years has been the shrinking of middle management and the way large companies move their people around so quickly.
Where once a marketing manager might have been in power for ten years, these days he is more likely to be moved on after three. With no time to develop experience, trust, and a success list.
Oh, and he has to learn the intricacies of marketing through Google and Facebook and Twitter and peer to peer and international mail order, as well as conventional TV and print. All with shrinking budgets.
Victories like Cannes show that there is no shortage of talent here. And as Mills said, "Success like this creates an appetite to be more adventurous." I hope he's right.
