Trillion Dollar baby

While local sites such as Bizcommunity.com provide lists of finalists and The Loerie Awards itself have done a great job providing a comprehensive resource of all their contenders, there are few sites where you can actually view all the ads. The ones that do exist tend to be pay [in dollars] to view such as www.coloribus.com, www.advertolog.com and the Aussie outfit www.bestadsontv.com.

It is for this reason that we look so forward every year to The Loerie Awards - for the chance to see all the best work from our peers, including student and obscure niche work that would otherwise scarcely be accessible.

Trillion Dollar campaign

Perhaps it is precisely because target markets are so media elusive, that breakthrough campaigns such as TBWA\Hunt\Lascaris' Trillion Dollar Money wallpaper and billboard win the highest accolades at Cannes. [Ok, they do get all gooey over all causes African, which if you're chasing global recognition is always something to bear in mind.]

But the point seems to be, ads that get absorbed into or reflect popular culture win awareness and awards. This year's crop, of which even the most media-averse person would be aware, would include Jupiter's Keep it Real, and Draftfcb's Player 23, which because they capture the public imagination and generate the much desired "viral" or word of mouth exposure, succeed in transcending the limits of their media schedules.

TBWA\Hunt\Lascaris receiving the coveted Cannes Grand Prix

If fragmentation of media can be defined as not knowing know where your target audience will be at any given time, perhaps covergence is about reaching them despite this fact. For example the Vodacom Single ladies ads allow you to participate in a number of different ways - upload, download, offload etc. Thus do ambient-style advertising messages break through indifference and humour us into wanting to know more, have more, do more, engage more. Whether they will actually influence behaviour is the topic for another day.

The convergence approach sees media collide - for example, you didn't have to have seen the actual Nedbank solar-powered billboard for its message to reach you - it arrived virally via any amount of additional press and media coverage; the experiential Brrrr! got us all to do something over and above just look at an ad or use the product; and who of us hasn't given someone the eyeball while chanting "What are you doing, Dave?"

We look forward to the hierarchy of cleverness displayed by our industry's finest illustrators, animators, wordsmiths and image makers this weekend at the 31st Annual Loerie awards. As someone said this week, I don't know why they don't do away with the categories and just enter all the work in one?

I guess that would be the ultimate in convergence.