• Viewpoints
• Awards

Spikes Asia 2017 featured three judges from Hakuhodo DY Group: TBWA\Hakuhodo’s Kazoo Sato, president of the Music jury; Hakuhodo’s Tatsuro Miura, who sat on the Outdoor & Radio jury; and Hakuhodo DY Media Partners’ Sanshiro Shimada, who sat on the Media jury. We asked each about the judging criteria in their category and what set the winners apart. Here, in Part 3, is the interview with Sanshiro Shimada.

• Media

Sanshiro Shimada
Executive Manager
Media & Content Business Center
Hakuhodo DY Media Partners

Tell us about the judging criteria in the Media category this year.

My first impression of the Media category was that it was a really left-brained field to judge. Media is relevant to every category, so we started with the question of how to define the Media category, but in the end the judging began before we managed to obtain a clear answer. So what did we base our evaluations on? Four basic criteria: insight & idea, strategy & targeting, execution, and results. Specifically, we examined whether each entry was well balanced: 30% for insight & idea, 20% for strategy & targeting, 20% for execution, and 30% for results. That may be why entries deemed to be poorly balanced—those, for example, with a single over-dominant idea—made it onto the shortlist but failed to get an award, and there was lots of complicated debate delving into numerical results. I had little previous jury experience, and this was my baptism into the Spikes Media category [laughs].

What entry won the Grand Prix in the Media category? Which did you personally find most striking?

The entry that emerged from this judging process to claim the Grand Prix was “Made Possible by Melbourne” for the University of Melbourne. Exhibition areas were set up in various locations all over Melbourne to showcase and share a wide array of findings from cutting-edge scientific and technological research conducted at the University of Melbourne. The exhibits were interactive to make them more understandable, and there were audio tours by bus. It was as if the entire city had been turned into a university with a school festival or open house going on within its precincts. It was truly an all-out effort, which is why it got the award. “Emergency Collectibles,” an appeal for earthquake preparedness by Japan’s Kobe Shimbun newspaper, won a gold. I rated this highly for its use of the newspaper medium and for its branding of the Kobe Shimbun. And being Japanese myself, I was naturally eager to make the case for it.

University of Melbourne, “Made Possible by Melbourne” (McCann, Australia)
URL: https://www.spikes.asia/winners/2017/media/
NOTE: The video is available for viewing for a limited time on the official website.

One entry I personally liked was Nike’s “Reinventing the Athlete Tour.” There’s a video game modeled on NBA player Kevin Durant, which Kevin Durant himself, a passionate gamer, often plays. For this campaign, buying a pair of Nike shoes online earned you the right to participate in a tournament, and if you made it through to the final you got to play the game head to head against Kevin Durant himself. The neat thing was how the game was streamed live on an online sports channel complete with running commentary. I felt it had a really nice media content twist instead of the usual Nike fervor. I’m actually a fan of the game myself, so I made a really impassioned plea for this entry, but unfortunately it only got silver.

What is the significance of advertising awards like Spikes?

One thing I myself always tell young people is to go to advertising awards contests overseas to discover the wellspring of their own creativity. It doesn’t matter that much whether or not you win an award; you should go to find what work or trends appeal to you. When you bring together work you find you genuinely like, without any preconceptions, you may discover you’re actually attracted to stuff that is amusing, say, or you’re surprisingly interested in CSR-related campaigns. To find out what you’re a stickler for, look at as many entries as you can and check them out; the color of the award doesn’t matter. From the standpoint of Media Partners, advertising awards are a goldmine of business hints. They also let you practice thinking of how to take a one-shot campaign and turn it into a sustainable ecosystem. Advertising awards are full of lessons for agency people.