Meditations on a Skull by Brendon Guthrie, Chairman of Judges, 2014 PADC Awards

Former Perth creative now Ogilvy Melbourne ECD Brendon Guthrie (pictured) was Chairman of Judges for the 2014 PADC Skulls. Here, Guthrie reflects on the work he saw and what it reveals about the state of creativity in the Perth industry.

I reckon Shakespeare might have been onto something. There’s nothing quite like holding a human skull in your hand and staring into its twin voids to get you thinking.

To be here…or not to be here.

That is the question I’m sure many of you have asked yourselves at one time or another. As did I, and every other member of the creative WAfia now spread across Australia and around the globe.

It’s a deeply personal question and one I think best answered by the Stone Roses’ Ian Brown who, when asked by a music journalist how such a flood of creativity could have burst forth from a backwater like Manchester, replied that it’s not where you are, it’s where you’re at that matters.

So, in the wake of the 2014 PADC Awards, where are you at, Perth?

After a very, very long day locked in a room with Simon Bagnasco and Julie Faktor – two people who’d never even been to WA, let alone seen most of its advertising – the considered opinion was that Perth is not in a bad place.

Now, before anyone accuses me of damning my hometown with faint praise, I need to put the words ‘not’ and ‘bad’ in their proper context.

In my opinion, the quality of Australian advertising creativity is inconsistent right now, and it has been for some time. There are many reasons for this, not least of which being the difficulty of stretching ever-shrinking budgets over more media channels than ever before. But lack of money is not the problem’s only root. Like a stroke patient regaining the power of speech, I believe we’re experiencing the stumbles, false starts and frustration that are part and parcel of rediscovering our distinctive creative voice.

After too many years spent trying to bash our work into some kind of imagined global consistency for the benefit of overseas award juries, I’m beginning to hear our cultural accent reawaken. And the great irony is, it’s the very same accent that allowed Australian advertising to punch above its weight internationally for so many years.

To misquote The Castle, there’s a ‘vibe’ in the air. I like it. And I heard its whisper in a lot of the work we recognised at this year’s PADC Awards. Obviously, that whisper came loudest from the Skulls handed to winners on the night.

In my experience, praise for the St John’s ‘Break the Barrier’ spot is universal. It’s profoundly affecting, I suspect equally effective and I don’t think it’s my social marketing bias showing when I say it deserved more recognition on the international stage than it received. In Perth, it thoroughly deserved Gold and was a worthy Best of Show.

The gold-winning photo essay for Aurelio Costarella would not, in the words of judge Julie Faktor, look out of place in an international edition of Vogue. It beautifully illustrated the truth that all great commercial photography has an idea at its heart.

And when the Rottofest ‘Burning Flag’ spot played in the judging room, we reacted like radio listeners and pissed ourselves laughing. The fact the decision to award it Gold was immediately unanimous is testament to how rare it is for a radio ad to do that these days.

Of the seven Silvers handed out on the night, a couple were at the very top end of the category, but only one put a serious case for being argued up to Skull status. ‘Go Buoy’ was universally acknowledged as being a great idea and a highly relevant use of technology, but in the end, it was sunk by a series of passionate arguments over some points of execution. And for a trio of even-tempered judges, that was enough for us to err on the side of leaving it where we first put it.

My overall impressions as 2014 Chairman? Though the number and colour of awards handed out in their categories appear to contradict me, I was impressed by the quality of digital and interactive thinking on display.My suspicion is that creative talent and ambition are a bit ahead of agency and client resources right now. But when those planets align, Perth could end up being to digital what Adelaide was to Australian radio creativity in the ‘eighties and early ‘nineties.

Conversely, the Print and Radio categories were disappointing. Surprisingly so, given they’re Perth’s traditional strengths. This is not to say that the work we awarded is in any way unworthy. It’s just that in a town where the newspaper and top radio station believe in creativity enough to stump up a trip to Cannes and $25,000 cash respectively, you expect to see more adventurous thinking.

And because no article like this would be complete without some smartarse from the East (or in this case, uppity expat) telling you how to fix things, I offer two pieces of advice.

Invest your time and sweat your craft.

Sure, in advertising more than just about any other business, time is money these days. But as Hemingway wrote, “There are some things which cannot be learned quickly and time, which is all we have, must be paid heavily for their acquiring.”

No great creative man or woman anywhere in the world ever earns enough to cover the hours he or she puts in.

Or, to put it another way, it’s the price you pay for the privilege of being paid to do what comes naturally.

I say this because in the final analysis, craft and attention to detail are what separates the Gold, Silver, Bronze, Best of Category and Finalists at the PADC Awards 2014.

The idea will always be the most important part of the advertising creative process, but it still only gets you halfway there.

Truly great work comes from those prepared to go above and beyond in their commitment to turn a brilliant idea into a beautiful, flawlessly executed piece of communication.

Like it or not, most of that will be unpaid and done in your own time. And that’s true whether you’re working in Subiaco, Sydney, London or New York. But if you have your name on a Skull, I’ll hazard a guess that you already understand this.

On behalf of Julie and Simon, I’d like to thank Mark Braddock and his Committee – not just for their hospitality, but also their unwavering commitment to maintaining the Club as an inspirational and relevant part of the local creative community.

As I write, the MADC is trying to get its collective act together to restart its award show and I think the new crew in charge could do a lot worse than pick up the phone to Mark for a chat about how things are done here.

Which conveniently brings me back to the beginning, Perth.

To be here…or not to be here.

Well, after seeing first hand the robust health of an awards show established in my first year as a junior copywriter back in 1989, and judging the body of work it encouraged in 2014, I’m very proud to be from here.

And you should be, too.