#BigPic16: Thoughts On @TheOBIEAwards
Gail Chiasson, North American Editor
Gold and silver OBIE Awards were presented last night (May. 19/16) at the TAB/OAAA Conference and Expo and, having attended the awards last year as well, I’d have to say that the creative this year showed a major step up from last.
And the judging panel must not have had an easy job, choosing from a total of 1,200 entries.
Be that as it may, I think it’s time that the OBIE awards categories were revamped in some way. Although there were digital entries among the winners, there is officially one category for what is called ‘Video & Interactive’. I was left somewhat confused about why. The same goes for why street furniture, transit and alternative are grouped. Is it because certain categories don’t get many entries? And with so much of the industry now moving to digital, is it time to ignore separate categories for interactive and video but perhaps open a couple strictly for static? I don’t know the answer but I wonder.
And the one thing that really left me scratching my head was how the domestic violence charity Women’s Aid campaign by WCRS that won several awards in Europe, including a Cannes Gold Lion, only won a three-way tie for gold in its category, sharing that spotlight with an ad by Fold 7 for Carlsberg and the Oreos stunt by Grand Visual.
We’ll run a list of OBIE winners later today.
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