“Death is something inevitable. When a man has done what he considers to be his duty to his people and his country, he can rest in peace. I believe I have made that effort and that is, therefore, why I will sleep for the eternity.” – Mandela, 1994 (The Authorised Book of Quotations)
Category archives: Hermaneutics – Herman Manson
Hermaneutics: Two narratives on MetropolitanRepublic sanctions
by Herman Manson (@marklives) Two very interesting but diverging stories ran on Thursday, 7 November 2013, in, ironically, two media products that also shares a newsroom. Both cover the MetropolitanRepublic/Loeries awards scandal, which saw the agency stripped of its awards for entering work that did not meet entry criteria, and then blaming its juniors, the broader ad industry and the Loerie organisers when caught out (it did eventually take full responsibility for its actions).
Hermaneutics: As lines blur, the Bookmarks seeks new relevance
by Herman Manson (@marklives) The Bookmarks Awards, the digital-centric advertising and publishing awards show, is reaching a tipping point, one that will either see it evolve away from its digi-only roots into something covering more integrated work, or see it link up with another award show to focus on a digital niche within more mainstream work.
Hermaneutics: Lessons from MetropolitanRepublic’s Loerie nightmare
by Herman Manson (@marklives) There are many lessons to be drawn from the current fracas surrounding MetropolitanRepublic being caught out for failing to adhere to the submission rules of The Loerie Awards.
Loeries & Pendoring: Not quite a post-mortem
by Herman Manson (@marklives) Flames roared impressively, smoke spilled over the stage and kids screamed. I had just been reading their naively thankful tweets to their educational institutions, such as the AAA School of Advertising, expressing eternal gratitude for securing them seats IN THE FRONT ROW!! of the auditorium at The Loerie Awards, and I had been wondering what fate— and the ad industry — would have in store for them… Welcome to the biz, kiddos.
The ad industry gathered in Cape Town this past weekend, starting on Friday evening, 20 September 2013, with the Pendoring Awards [winners list] and continuing through Saturday and Sunday evenings with The Loerie Awards [Loeries 2013 — all winners], to celebrate and award its creative output of the past year.
Pendoring Awards promises ever-greater diversity
by Herman Manson (@marklives) This year the Pendoring Awards will yet again be sidelined by the Creative Circle, even as it shares the Creative Week stage with the Loeries. The Loeries remains the only local creative award that counts to the Creative Circle points system, except for their own Ad of the Month of course.
Hermaneutics: ‘Blackface’ ad faces international backlash
by Herman Manson (@marklives) Cape Town agency Lowe + Partners and client Cape Town Fish Market has been strongly criticised for using ‘blackface’ in their latest TV commercial. The ad has even been featured on Al-Jazeera who reported that the it had sparked ‘outrage among South Africans.’
In American history especially, ‘blackface’ was used to create stereotyped caricatures of black people. Today it is still sometimes used as social commentary or satire but it is generally considered politically incorrect.
The ad in question references a stereotypical ‘African Dictator’ – with an actor in blackfaceand wearing an Afro – diverting funds into his “expense account.” The ad, which consists of various vignettes, features the same actor also playing a prostitute, a dodgy doctor, porn director and rental agent.
Mvelase Peppetta blogged that he found the ad seriously offensive and suggested lack of transformation in the ad industry might have played a role in the ad getting flighted in the first place. “People far smarter and more experienced in SA’s marketing industry than me have time and again explained how the lack of diversity in our ad industry leads to these kind of horribly offensive and stereotypical ads,” wrote Peppetta.
Hermaneutics: 24.com closes down Afrikaans news portal to save paywall strategy
By Herman Manson. Media24 owned 24.com has decided to close down Nuus24, the Afrikaans edition of news24.com, starting 1 Jul.
Hermaneutics: Jobs For Monkeys In Adland
Young and want to land a job in advertising? Join a circus. That is the gist of reader feedback on an Adland.tv story featuring a recruitment campaign by DDB Brussels in which prospective employees need to submit a 6-second Vine gif (hashtag #ddbexpress) in place of a CV.
Ten ‘new’ creatives will make the shortlist and be put together on a train to Cannes. En-route they will need to solve numerous creative briefs, on which they will be judged, and eight will be sent home (dropped off at the various stations en-route – apparently). The two that make it to Cannes will be ‘rewarded by an invitation to join the creative department of DDB.’ That’s not exactly an explicit job offer, hence some of the commentary on the original story referring to internships.
The campaign has been described as a rather demeaning process to land a job. Critics also point out that to enter you need Vine, which only runs on iPhones, and so excludes a fairly large group of potential candidates, including many for whom an iPhone would be out of reach.
Says the Facebook site created for the campaign “Creative Directors are very busy people, and new creatives need to be agile. Combine those two and you get our brand new way of hiring: 6″ recruitment. You have exactly six seconds to convince our Creative Director, Peter Ampe.”
Not too busy to make the train ride and make some kids jump through hoops, or to make the awards festival for that matter, just too busy to look down and at your portfolio. The agency seems to be snorting Cannes, really, counting the award shows they can enter with this ‘creatively lead’ take on recruitment.
Hermaneutics: Awards or education? Guess which one agencies pick.
Yup. That didn’t take two seconds did it? You want to move on up in adland you better land a couple of awards. Who needs multi-skilled, educated self-starters anyways.
David Nobay, Creative Chairman at Droga5 in Sydney, last year told delegates at the Loeries seminar that modern award shows are oversimplifying what is considered ‘creative.’ And I quote: “Awarding winning work has become a matter of looking at a piece of work and having an immediate reaction (on the judges’ part) to it before moving to the next piece.” And while most businesses are running in maintenance mode, and need solutions that cater to this, award-winning creative has become all about the new.