Awards boycott threat fizzles out

By IRENE CHAPPLE

A planned boycott of the direct marketer's event of the year, the DMA Awards, has been diluted and ticket sales suggest this year's event could be the biggest yet.

The proposed ban by up to seven agencies has been weakened after some clients pushed to participate and at least one agency decided against a boycott.

But last year's top award-winning local campaign, WRC's Smirnoff Half Day Off, will not be in the running for a DMA Award.

The agency quit the Direct Marketing Association in protest over the last awards.

This year's DMA Awards are the first under a new system introduced after the dissident group expressed dissatisfaction at the judging process.

The agencies, including WRC, Brave New World, Robbins Brandt Richter, Publicis Rainger and Nebula said they were unhappy with the lack of transparency and convoluted process of the awards.

The processes have been changed, although Direct Marketing Association chief executive Keith Norris says alterations have been minor.

An independent report into the awards had not made any difference to the winners, and had validated the process, he said.

But the Grand Prix winner will now be chosen by the rejudging of the various gold winners. In the last awards, it was chosen by adding up scores.

Other changes also include limiting the awards chairman and chief judges to two years in their roles and having a chartered accountancy firm managing the data input.

WRC's Richard Bleasdale says the agency will rejoin the Direct Marketing Association this year, but the changes were "too little, too late" for it to enter the awards.

"I don't think we would say we don't trust the judging - the changes have been good and I am pretty sure it will be absolutely 100 per cent," he said.

"But we wanted to see what comes out of this year's event, what feedback comes out of it."

Bleasdale said he had discussed the issues at length with his clients, none of whom were concerned that the agency was not entering.

While it felt "a bit funny" not to be participating, WRC had already won an extraordinary collection of accolades for the Half Day Off campaign, including Miami's Globe Awards Grand Prix and a Gold Lion at the Cannes International Advertising Festival.

Such a collection made it easier to skip the local awards, said Bleasdale, although the agency was likely to participate again next year.

Robbins Brandt Richter's Trevor Moody said the agency had decided to participate after discussing the issues with clients.

"The results, internally and externally, said that we should enter."

Moody said it was preferable to have the "best competition" at the awards.

But the decision not to boycott came after clients said they wanted to participate.

Brave New World has also entered its work for Telecom Directories after a request from the client.

The agency's chief executive, Frank van der Velden, said the furore had destroyed a lot of goodwill between the agencies and the Direct Marketing Association.

While they would participate in the awards night, "perhaps the sparkle is not there that would normally be," he said.

"There is a bit of shit behind us, to put it plainly, but we do want to move on."

Keith Norris, chief executive of the Direct Marketing Association, said almost 400 tickets had sold for the February 28 event.

This was close to the 430 sold in total for the last awards night, in 2001.

He said the association had encouraged more clients to enter, as a large number of campaigns were developed inhouse.