Also in this special report:
* Palmer Jarvis leads the pack p.37
* Breakdown: Clients p.38
* Breakdown: Advertising Agencies p.38
* Breakdown: Creative Directors p.38
* Breakdown: Copywriters p.39
* Breakdown: Art Directors p.39
* Breakdown: Television p.40
* Breakdown: Magazine p.40
* Breakdown: Newspaper p.42
* Breakdown: Transit p.42
* Breakdown: Outdoor p.43
* Breakdown: Direct Marketing p.43
* Breakdown: Radio p.43

Chris Staples. Alan Russell. Ian Grais.

If you grew tired of hearing these names at industry awards shows in the past year … well, sorry, but here they are again.

As the architects of two of the past year’s most celebrated advertising campaigns – on behalf of Crime Stoppers and Vancouver’s Playland amusement park – this trio brought home a truckload of prizes for themselves and their agency, Palmer Jarvis Communications, in 1997.

And their success has, in turn, secured first-place honors for Palmer Jarvis (to be renamed Palmer Jarvis DDB by Jan. 9 if a planned merger with DDB Canada is approved by all parties) in Strategy’s annual Creative Report Card – further confirmation, if any should still be needed, that this Vancouver-based agency is currently one of the two or three most formidable creative shops in the country.

The Creative Report Card charts the results of the major Canadian advertising awards programs held in 1997, to provide a snapshot of Canada’s most celebrated agencies, clients and creative talent.

Staples took first-place honors in the creative director category, by a wide margin over the closest finisher, Steven Landsberg of Ogilvy & Mather.

Top copywriter honors went to Russell, while Grais finished first in the art director category.

Among clients, Timex Canada earned the greatest number of points, on the strength of Ogilvy & Mather’s much-lauded Olympic-themed campaign for Indiglo Night-Light watches. Federal Express Canada finished in second place, thanks to bbdo’s work for them in print and outdoor, while Playland took third.

bbdo took second place in the agency category, followed by Ogilvy & Mather. Roche Macaulay & Partners Advertising, the winner of Strategy’s 1997 Agency of the Year competition, finished fourth.

The Creative Report Card is undertaken separately from the Agency of the Year. In that exercise, Strategy asks a panel of clients and advertising professionals to evaluate work from a shortlist of agencies (see second section).

While the Agency of the Year competition evaluates current work, the Creative Report Card tends to reflect the performance of agencies during the previous year, since there is generally about a year’s delay between the time advertising creative is developed and the time it makes it to the awards circuit.

The Creative Report Card, therefore, largely reflects an agency’s work in 1996.

It should be noted that this ranking does not purport to reveal the names of the ‘best’ creative directors, art directors or copywriters – or that a low number of points means that one is among the ‘worst.’ Such judgments are purely subjective, and Strategy would never claim to possess the authority to make a definitive determination.

Rather, the Creative Report Card serves as a comprehensive record of whose work the industry has honored most highly in the course of the previous year.

Strategy has developed a grading system that provides a cumulative measure of the hundreds of individual advertising awards presented in the past year.

Here’s how the system works:

Strategy assigns a point value to each gold, silver, bronze and certificate of merit (or the equivalents), weighted according to the relative importance of each awards program, as judged by Strategy’s editorial staff.

National awards programs are accorded greater weight than regional shows.

In the same way, awards shows that honor a cross-section of media are accorded greater weight than those that look at only a single medium.

By adding up the points accorded to each award-winning piece of advertising, Strategy is in turn able to assign points to each agency, client, creative director, art director and copywriter whose work is honored.

The Creative Report Card uses, as its foundation, the results of the major national and regional advertising awards programs that recognize excellence in consumer advertising. These are:
* The Advertising and Design Club of Canada awards (all media), presented by the Advertising and Design Club of Canada.
* The Applied Arts awards (all media), presented by Applied Arts magazine.
* The Ad Rodeo awards (all media), presented by an independent advertising industry committee based in Calgary, Alta.
* The Bessies (tv), presented by the Television Bureau of Canada.
* Les Coqs d’Or (all media), presented by the Publicite Club de Montreal.
* The Extras (newspaper), presented by the Canadian Newspaper Association.
* The Marketing awards (all media), presented by Marketing Magazine.
* The Radio Impact awards (radio), presented by the Radio Marketing Bureau.
* The rsvp awards (direct response), presented by the Canadian Direct Marketing Association.

(The Billi awards, which honor excellence in outdoor advertising, have been postponed until early in the new year. The 1997 Lotus awards, the b.c. advertising industry’s annual celebration, were held too late this year to be included in our ranking. We hope to have both back in next year.)

As a group, these awards shows recognize excellence in seven media categories: television, radio, newspapers, magazines, outdoor, transit and direct response marketing.

The Creative Report Card begins with overall listings of advertising agencies, clients, creative directors, art directors and copywriters.

Within the seven media categories, results are broken out by agency, client, creative director, art director (with the obvious exception of radio) and copywriter.

A summary of the top performers in each category appears on the first page of this report.

As usual, since the various awards were announced, a number of creatives have changed agencies. (Can’t you people all just stay put?) To be consistent, they are listed with the agency for which they won the award. In categories where an individual won awards for more than one agency, each agency is listed.

Awards programs and annuals were our reference for all credits.

Due to limited editorial space, listings below 10 points have not necessarily been included.

Ian Grais
Palmer Jarvis 196

Scott Dube
BBDO; Ogilvy & Mather; Roche Macaulay & Partners 134

Elsie Fehr
Ogilvy & Mather 131

Nancy Vonk
Ogilvy & Mather 92

Mark Mizgala
Palmer Jarvis 67

Lisa Francilia
BBDO 61

Derek Higgs
Axmith McIntyre Wicht 56

Elspeth Lynn
Leo Burnett 51

Graham Lee
Roche Macaulay & Partners; Pirate Radio and Television 41

Brenda Van Ginkel
Holmes Donin Alloul 36

Linda Carte
Roche Macaulay & Partners 36

Carlos Moreno
MacLaren McCann 35

Les Soos
Ranscombe & Co. 32

Robert Kingston
Roche Macaulay & Partners 32

Marissa Mastenbroek
Ogilvy & Mather 29

Bill Newbery
BBDO 26

Michael Kirkland
Ogilvy & Mather 26

Steve Murray
OgilvyOne Worldwide 23

David Kelso
MacLaren McCann 22

Dean Lee
Palmer Jarvis 22

Michael McLaughlin
BBDO 22

Peter Knight
Holmes Donin Alloul 22

Randy Diplock
BBDO 22

Stephen Blair
MacLaren McCann 21

Jean-Francois Bernier
Bos 20

Cosmo Campbell
Palmer Jarvis 19

Deborah Prenger
Roche Macaulay & Partners 19

Rick Davis
MacLaren McCann 19

Allan Mah
Who Are They? 18

Chris Taciuk
Who Are They? 18

Frank Lepre
Leo Burnett 18

Bill Downie
Palmer Jarvis 17

Mike Kirkland
Ogilvy & Mather 17

Bradley Wood
Palmer Jarvis 15

Chris Harrison
Roche Macaulay & Partners 15

Egon Springer
Bates Canada 15

Peter Holmes
Holmes Donin Alloul 15

Robert Goulart
Ammirati Puris Lintas 15

Todd Mackie
Cossette Communication-Marketing 15

Gail Agensky
Wunderman Cato Johnson 14

Mark Hesse
Palmer Jarvis; Roche Macaulay & Partners 14

Sam Sitt
Leo Burnett 14

Duncan Bruce
TBWA Chiat/Day 13

Armando Lulu
Bensimon Byrne/DMB&B 12

Doug Robinson
Ammirati Puris Lintas 12

Greg Rowan
BBDO 12

Sherry Martin
Holmes Donin Alloul 12

George Gilewski
BBDO 11

Kerry Reynolds
MacLaren McCann 11

Lance Martin
Ranscombe & Co. 11

Wain Choi
Casimir/Choi; Bates Canada 11

Chris Hobson
Roche Macaulay & Partners 10

Benjamin BenSimon
Ammirati Puris Lintas 9

Gary Holme
TBWA Chiat/Day 9

John Terry
Bates Canada 9

Kate Anthony
Ambrose Carr Linton Carroll 9

Roger Gariepy
Bos 9

Shirely Ward-Taggart
Leo Burnett 9

Steve Mapp
Roche Macaulay & Partners 9

Jeff Lennard
Highwood Communications 8

Sue Boivin
BBDO 8

Carolyn Nicholo
SMW Advertising 7

Claude Dumoulin
FCB Direct 7

Janice Ross
Palmer Jarvis 7