Top agency: Palmer Jarvis DDB
Top client: Labatt Breweries of Canada
Top creative director: Zak Mroueh, Taxi
Top art director: Lance Martin, Taxi
Top copywriter: Jonathan Careless, Taxi
Can’t keep track of your trophies? Let Strategy do the legwork for you. The 13th annual Creative Report Card offers, yet again, a national ranking of award show successes.
This year’s tally shows Palmer Jarvis DDB out on top for the sixth year in a row. But Taxi – no stranger to the awards circuit – pulled as close a second as could be expected, considering its boycott of the 2002 Marketing Awards.
When it comes to individual creatives, Taxi really showed its mettle, boycott or no. Zak Mroueh stole top creative director for the second year in a row, Lance Martin jetted up from 12th to top crayon, and Taxi newcomer Jonathan Careless (formerly at MacLaren McCann) makes his debut report card appearance as the number one copywriter.
How we do it
Strategy’s Creative Report Card was established in 1989 to give the Canadian marketing community a feel for which agencies, clients and creatives brought home the most award show honours in the preceding 12 months. To do this, we keep a database of wins for each agency, client, creative director, art director and copywriter that is updated after each show.
To acknowledge the fact that it’s harder to bring home a Gold Lion from Cannes than to win top prize at a regional show, Strategy uses a grading system. In other words, international shows are assigned more points than national shows, which in turn, are assigned more points than regional shows. Within each show, of course, a gold is worth the most points and a merit the least. Medium-specific shows are not included.
Creatives who wear more than one hat were assigned points based on the title listed in the credits for each win. Thus a creative would add to his or her creative director score whenever he or she was listed under that title in an annual, and would have a separate running total for prizes won as a copywriter.
Finally, for consistency’s sake, creatives are generally listed with the most recent agency for which they won an award, although Strategy acknowledges the musical chairs-like nature of the industry.
Which shows count?
Domestic Competitions
The Ad Rodeo Awards
The Advertising and Design Club of Canada Awards
The Applied Arts Awards
Les Coqs d’Or, presented by the Publicité Club de Montréal
The Lotus Awards
The Marketing Awards
The Cassies
International Competitions
The Cannes International Advertising Festival
The Clio Awards
The Communications Arts Awards
The London International Advertising Awards
The One Show
Special thanks to John Dranski for time served as this year’s database warden.
