Drugi jezik na kojem je dostupan ovaj članak: Bosnian
By: Ekrem Dupanović
Daniel Vuković is chief creative officer of McCann Zagreb. He has 18 years of experience and has worked on brands in every category. He has won about 90 professional awards, including the New York Festivals, London International Advertising Awards, Cresta International Advertising Awards, Epica Awards, Creativity New York, MIAF, Effie Awards, Summit Marketing Effectiveness Awards, BalCannes, IdejaX, Magdalena Grand Prix etc. He is this year’s jury president of IdejaX, so we talked with him about the Croatian advertising scene and the expectations of the most important Croatian advertising festival.
Media Marketing: McCann Zagreb is placed in the top ranks in the Days of Communication every year. Do you have your own favorites this year as well?
Daniel Vuković: In recent years McCann Zagreb has always been among the top three agencies at Days of Communication. A special achievement for us was two years ago when the Effie Index declared us the most effective agency in the region. The research on clients conducted by HURA (Croatian Association of Communications Agencies) shows that the Effie Awards Croatia are the most significant awards in the Croatian market. Therefore, this year we will enter our largest number of works yet for the Effies. Of course, we have several works that we believe also deserve awards in the Mixx and IdejaX competitions.
Media Marketing: Should we expect some changes this year regarding the assessment of works at IdejaX?
Daniel Vuković: Several months ago HURA established a special task force made up of creative directors from member agencies with the intention of adapting the judging regulations to the current environment. Today we have a revised rulebook that aims to attract more applications and reward more works (the introduction of the Silver and Bronze IdejaX), make the judging process more transparent (public voting), and make the ceremony more meaningful.
Media Marketing: What will be the assessment criteria for works entered for IdejaX, which you, as the president, will suggest to the members of the jury?
Daniel Vuković: The criteria for evaluation are already in the rulebook: attractiveness, media neutrality, authenticity, relevance, market specificity, market relevance. Personally, when judging I always stick to three criteria: 1. strategic basis and definition of the message; 2. freshness of the creative solutions; 3. quality of execution. And in my opinion the first one is the most important. When I see a work, I always try to “write a brief” i.e. evaluate whether the message actually makes sense. If not, the communication is irrelevant. As of this year, “the jury can discuss the awarding of all the prizes. Decisions that are argued and discussed have more weight than a simple arithmetic mean score, and through such argument the selection of winners in individual categories may be better determined,” so when assessing the works, I will suggest to members of the jury such an analytical approach.
Media Marketing: What do you think about the Croatian advertising scene? Do you expect good entries and campaigns this year?
Daniel Vuković: In general, the figures show a recovery. However, the quality of work is on average still low. We will always be lagging behind the developed markets. Simply put, advertising is a mirror of society.
This year I expect less quality work than in previous years. The reason is simple – the festival has been moved almost two weeks earlier. The evaluation will not include all the spring campaigns, which are currently in production.
Media Marketing: This is an opportunity to invite agencies and advertisers to enter their works, so you and the other jury members have more work.
Daniel Vuković: In the first agency where I worked as a young creative, I created a campaign that was the first Croatian campaign featured in Lürzer’s Archive magazine. We also entered it in the national advertising festival, then Festo. We didn’t win anything, because we were a small, insignificant agency. I remember that feeling. So what I want, above all, is to invite small agencies to register their works. If they believe that they cannot win an award “because the jury members share the awards among themselves,” I’ll make sure to change their mind, because any work that deserves it, will get an award.