The Creative Report Card was established in 1989 to give the marketing community an idea of which agencies, clients and creatives have brought home the most hardware for their mantels. To do this, we keep a database of wins for each agency, client, CD, art director and copywriter and award points. However, we at strategy realize it’s likely a tougher field at Cannes than in Calgary. Thus, point values are highest for international awards, followed by national and then regional.
Scoring
Each year we attempt to have the value of points we award to each show reflect the feedback we receive from our readers and industry people. One small change this year: After speaking with the folks at D&AD, we’ve awarded points for ‘silver nominations,’ which, they say, are similar to winning a bronze.
That clarified, points are awarded according to whomever is credited in awards show books. When a credit was omitted in a particular awards show but the same ad was credited correctly in another award show, the secondary information was used to fill in the blanks.
Individuals
In regard to the individual awards, we have done our best to reference the agency for which the individual happens to be working for currently, wherever possible.
Agencies
If an agency has offices in multiple cities, that agency is credited only once; however affiliated agencies with identical parent companies are listed separately.
Clients
In some cases, clients were listed differently for the same ads, so we have merged the point totals. For clients who share the same parent company we have awarded the points to the credited company. However, no two clients were awarded points for the same ad.
A final thought
The purpose of the Creative Report Card is to give a fair and accurate analysis of Canada’s strongest creative advertising work. Bear in mind that the report card accounts for almost 1,000 individual awards (and at least five credits for every award), and therefore is not a perfect system. But we have tried to do our best both in determining the value of each award show, as well as in giving credit where it’s due.
What awards count:
Regional: ICE, Ad Rodeo, Coq d’or, Lotus
National: Marketing, Applied Arts, Cassies, ADCC
International: Cannes, Clios, One Show, LIAA, D&AD, Communication Arts
