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| Self-ad published in Al Waseet newspaper in 2005 |
The good news is that the Pikasso d'Or - our local competition for the Out Of Home awards - is back.
The bad news is that it is back with such a dismal quality.
Sure sure, congratulations for all the winners and yes, the Milton by Pimo deserved its Pikasso d'Or and Ksara by Mink totally got its award with a Pikasso de Bronze (though it could have easily been Pikasso d'argent in my book). And I like the ABC by Joe Fish art direction of the ads. And this is where I shall stop.
Look, I am all for boosting the morale of the troops and telling them they did a great job, but a travesty is a travesty. Apart from the ethical considerations of people on the jury winning awards from the said jury (no names) which take me back to the backroom shenigans and barters that used to take place at the now defunkt Phenix de la Pub awards. However the overall quality was so dismally low they could have very simply withheld awards in categories.
Heck, I am on the Epica Awards and this year awards were withheld in two categories because the quality of the work was not good enough to merit one. No shame in that.
But again, whereas the idea goes that one does not need a mega budget to create a creative ad, there was a lot of ads created - with or without a budget - that simply do not merit a second look, let alone an award.
Once more, congratulations for the winners, but perhaps Pikasso d'Or could have merited of taking a step back, held its breath for a further year (remember the competition comes back from a hiatus of 3 years what's with the damage the economic breakdown and covid put together have done) to get more worthy winners (as I said apart from Milton and Ksara who much deserved their praises).