By: Boštjan Prijanovič, CEO of New Moment Y&R Ljubljana, founder of marketing school BP Komunikacije, member of the board of the Association of Slovenian Advertising Agencies
I’m outraged with the silent collapse of once the best festival of the New Europe.
Golden Drum has been losing its reputation for a long time now. We Slovenians take only some peripheral awards, and focus more on the SOF, in which all the awards are ours. Probably the biggest problem is that the Golden Drum has been dying slowly for five or seven years now. And the fact that the SOZ has been idly sitting on a million euros that are now slowly fading away, filling the hole created by the Golden Drum and some other projects along it, of course. Had the change happened suddenly, we would have noticed it. And we would have realized that Golden Drum cannot be saved by mere cosmetic repairs.
To make it clear, the move to Ljubljana I don’t count among the cosmetic corrections. It’s an interesting idea, and quite a good one for the medium term. But it will not solve the problems by itself.
I’ve spent my Friday at the Ljubljana Castle. The day started with a successful parking (I got the last spot reserved for participants :) ). Then I pushed my way through tourists to the reception, and guessed where all the participants are. About 25 of us to ended up at the exhibition (where immediately at the entrance I was warned by the hostess not to touch the exhibits!? As if I was at the Louvre no less), there were 30 or so at the Flying Fish and about 80 in the Dragon. BTW, the one who came up with the names of these halls probably had a story in mind which is not quite clear to the rest of us.
I remembered the band KUD Idioti and wondered: where are all these people? You cannot have a festival atmosphere if you don’t have people. So you lose even those who do come. Outside it was 6 degrees Celsius. A designated area, probably intended for the participants to mingle in, was empty. It wasn’t actually quite clear that it was intended for us, nor have I noticed a warm snack (except lunch), beverages or blankets and heaters. Only the ice cold drinks from the fridge. Exactly what we’ve been waiting for. Restaurant Na Gradu endured us only at lunchtime, after which they prepared the tables for dinner and we were unwelcome then. They kicked me out the same way from Strelac – but when it comes to bars I’m already used that anything is possible. They could have written they were full, and thus spare me from the recreation on a huge flight of stairs. Up and down. In the end, I just nostalgically reminisced our old terrace. Never mind the terrible waiters and prices in Bernardino. But, in fact, I only regretted that there were too few of us.
I met many of my friends at the Golden Drum. To be sent by the boss to the Golden Drum was once the greatest reward. Everyone in the advertising industry knew of the Festival. Only thing that was needed to be fascinated by the festival was to hear that Sakan, Repovš, Conrad, Apih … would be there. They were the idols. They were the example of everything that can be achieved in advertising.
An advertising festival needs a great image and good organizers. Golden Drum only has the glorious past, partially maintained by nostalgia, and partially by the fact that the points are calculated for the Gunn Report. It’s run by bureaucrats who are afraid to put the project in the hands of someone who is too good. What if they accidentally take the merits??!!! God forbid!
Let’s rather try with more categories and let’s invent new awards. And let’s hope that Zoki will come to the rescue (note: the mayor of Ljubljana).
This is a nice excuse to go back to Friday night – the awards. The ceremony was at the fairgrounds. I have no idea why it didn’t take place at the Castle. Or at the Union, where one of the lectures was held. Or somewhere where you would have a sense of festive atmosphere. If you’re wondering (the fact that the organizer saved money at every step was already painfully obvious), YOU DON’T organize an event in the fair hall. If there’s no money to equip it, it looks like a warehouse.
Director of the SOZ welcomed us at the so-called gala event (after a ten-minute lament about Urška and Prešern, which I didn’t understood well, and I doubt that especially foreigners could understand what otherwise very sleek Ladeja and Jure were saying,). The only thing at that event which was gala was Mr. Janković. Whatever anyone might think, the mayor has a charisma. He greeted us in English, and it was the highlight of the evening. Fully relaxed, Janković ended every other sentence with “nje?” It was cool. I cried with laughter.
Then for the next three hours I did my best not to slit my wrists.
The presentation of awards stretched into boredom. With a little organizational skill, all could have been wrapped up within an interesting hour and a half. This way, we watched the endless climbing of the same people on the scene. At the beginning I enthusiastically applauded for them, and later I was just waiting for someone to trip and fall. Not because I’m mean, but just so something would happen.
About the award-winning works I will rather write another column. But I just can’t avoid mentioning the weirdly awakening campaign Bittersweet pies – which warns of low representation of women in certain professions. Has anyone counted the women in the jury of Golden Drum? Yes? Almost entirely male jury awarded the work multiple times, and no one saw it fitting to mention that discrepancy?
There were exactly two women – one in each jury. Plus Tjaša Ficko in the jury for Ljubljana Poster Award, where the equipment had a slight hiccup. Bittersweet?
As far as the number of categories are concerned – hello! There is a growing number of categories!? Maybe it’s an interesting business model to get more fees. But there is general confusion. It is not clear what falls into which category. We could discuss whether the Sea Hero Quest is actually branded content, because it would mean that there is some content that you “brand”. But here, the entire project is essentially content, created specifically for this. But that actually doesn’t matter, and I consider the campaign to be top as well. I mention it only because the categories do not reflect reality. Modern advertising intertwines content and advertising in combination with technology. It cannot be simply summarized, as you once could summarize the different channels of communication so they were the festival categories. Perhaps it would be best if there were no all these categories, and that the jury decides on all the ideas in one basket. Just some food for thought.
I still can’t move from categories. Adriatic? Hello and WTF? Why isn’t there the Baltics category then, or the Višegrad Group. The very name of the category is stupid. If it’s hard to say that we were once all in Yugoslavia, then don’t deal with such categories. A whole range of countries, including the winner, doesn’t have an Adriatic beach. So it’s a meaningless category – the winner didn’t receive a single point. Does this seem logical to anyone? Of course some people thought it makes sense – they would now probably enumerate the reasons for that particular award for hours and hours. We’re like that. We direct most of our energy to justifying mistakes instead of eliminating them.
So, all the statues were divided. The last one on the stage – the Network of the Year – received not one but two boxes of gold confetti. It’s the Golden Drum after all, right? A good enough photographer thus made a press photo, but the impression was a little underwhelming. You can’t take that much money from someone for the registration fees and then award the best so cheaply.
But the highlight of frugality could be seen only in the adjoining hall. At the so-called party. Hall for 800 people, in which languished somewhere between 100 and 200 hungry and thirsty guests. Large Jack logo was just a ruse, because only a sample drink awaited us – and then the bar at full prices. No food. The band started with the music and that was the end of conversation. Obviously someone tuned the sound system for a full hall or something like that – there’s no point in discussing it. It was noisy, I couldn’t understand the singer, nor the lyrics. People were yelling in each other’s ears. A festival is a place to hang out, but what’s enough is enough. We packed up and went to Salsa (where the jury was also having a party :) ), and then further to the Railway Museum where the real party was going on. Irish whiskey on Friday night reigned supreme over the American one. There I found all the “survivors” from the strenuous Golden Drum Award Ceremony. Us locals. What the foreigners did, and what kind of opinion about the Golden Drum they took with them into the world, I don’t even dare to guess.
