Seen and noted

BEST TV
Sexy Delights for LastMinute.com gets my vote. Maybe I'm missing Europe, maybe I'm not getting enough cultural integration, whatever, this cheeky spot, timed for Valentine's Day's spontaneous lovers is a cultural and suggestive romp through Europe's top travel destinations. It also seems like a timely reminder that the best ads don't have to be expensive, complicated and hard to shoot. Makes me want to check out all that classical sculpture again, maybe I've missed something.

Runner up would go to Booking.com. Probably quite expensive, complex and hard to shoot. It's good though, and a solid insight.

BEST PRINT
If they find it, they will play with it is a great insight, a truth. I have kids and guns. Soon my kids will have kids and I will have guns. Of course it's easy to like a good cause, but I do think this campaign idea could be taken to even better places. It's a big idea. Don't stop.

I don't want to pick another cause related ad, but I will. Simply because it's the next best ad here this week. The WWF like ad is simple, clear, helpful, and makes me feel good about the world. What's not to like?

BEST OUTDOOR
You simply can't walk past a man who has 50 names of people he doesn't know tattooed onto his body for the UN World Food Programme. And then in a very beautiful piece of film and an enormous public gesture to his millions of fans, asks people to not remember his name, but to remember the names of the 805 million kids suffering from hunger. On face value this film looks like many other beautifully shot pieces of film, but beneath the skin there is substance. I jumped on line to find out more, that's when I learnt about the 50 names of unknowns, I saw the millions of YouTube views and I had no option but to pick another bloody good cause. Humbling.

Winner Samsung. Shark diving in the desert is for a brand selling stuff, phew. It's is such a simple product demo. Intriguing, playful and unforgettable for those that took part and pretty compelling for people like me who just get to watch the watchers. I believe it too, those darn screens are so good on those Samsungs. A tidy left field idea, nicely done.

BEST INTERACTIVE
I tried to interact with everything here, really I did. But some of it is hard to navigate, I suspect the AKQA work for Nike is hugely immersive and interesting, but it was impossible for me to judge.

So the pick is HP Don's voice project, it's long, 6 minutes at least, but it's worth the watch, you just have to step out of that instant gratification advertising world mentality and listen to the story. It's a good one.

One I will tell again. Great tech, great application, and yes, a brand and a good cause. Together doing their thing to make the world a better place.

So thanks for the privilege of letting me judge your work, if any one is still reading it heartens me that so much good thinking is being applied to making a difference and making the world a better place and helping brands share in that prosperity.

The smartest, and the most successful will, I think, be the people and brands who do that the best.

Cheers, Nick W.




This week's guest judge is Nick Worthington, creative chairman, Colenso BBDO, Auckland, New Zealand.

Nick studied Graphic Design in the early 80's at St Martin's School of Art in London. He joined BBH in London in 1986 and under the watchful eye of Sir John Hegarty produced many award winning campaigns including Levis Creek and Drugstore. After 10 years at BBH Nick joined AMV BBDO under David Abbott, and over the next 7 years created award winning work for Road Safety, Dulux, Wrangler.

In 2003 Nick joined Dave Droga on the Publicis worldwide creative board and moved to New Zealand, first as ECD at Publicis Mojo and later as ECD at Colenso BBDO in Auckland. Nick is now Creative Chairman at Colenso BBDO.

In New Zealand, the kind of work Nick and his team were doing began to change... they floated a fully working pub around the world to thirsty Kiwis in London for Speights, built a tree house restaurant for Yellow Pages, launched a Yellow-flavoured chocolate bar that outsold Snickers, created a real Dogfight over the Auckland Harbour for Spielberg's The Pacific, created the world's first Impulse Savings product for Westpac, used anti-terrorism software to create the first human to canine pairing software for Pedigree's Dog Adoption Drive, and continued to pick up the odd award in the process.