Nurock: What was the Media Lions judging process like for you?

Taback: We had to go through over 30,000 entries so it was quite a grueling process. We were stuck in a little room without any natural sunlight or air for between 8 and 10 hours a day, but the work really inspired me.

I had philosophies or criteria I was looking for. Those were uniqueness of the entry, how simple the execution was, how effective the work was, how clever it was, how measurable it was, that’s in terms of results, especially media results, and lastly how memorable it was and how memorable it can be. For me, you can see something once and never remember it again. So with something like the McWhopper, you saw it, you heard about it and people are talking about it. At the end of the day, if it’s memorable it moves feet through the doors and through stores.

Nurock: What I found really interesting at the Cannes Media Lions awards was when the jury president said they were looking for simplicity. I thought that was really good. I’d also seen a lot of those campaigns winning in Direct and other categories.

Taback: That definitely has happened. A lot of campaigns are entered into the various categories – not just media but different creative categories. The other thing is that the same piece of work is entered not by media agencies but creative agencies – so creative agencies enter media awards, and that’s what we found. We would know immediately that a piece of work had been entered by a creative agency, even if we didn’t know who had entered it. We’re actually not allowed to know who has entered the work and who the agency is, but we know who the client is. Still, if there are no media results or measurement, we know it’s from a creative agency.

Nurock: What about the South African entries. Native won a Silver Media Lion for their PASSOP campaign, but what were the other South African entries like?

Taback: Apart from PASSOP, the only other South African one was called the Slave Calendar from Geometry Global Johannesburg for the Iziko Slave Museum, which was brilliant. There were very few South African entries, and none from media agencies.

Nurock: Why do you think that is?

Taback: Firstly, it’s very expensive to enter, and people need to spend time, money and effort to enter. Sitting in a little room, as I mentioned earlier, you’ve got to see things visually, audio-visually. So all the entries that were just a storyboard didn’t make it through as they didn’t resonate with us. If you’re judging up to 400 entries per day, it’s got to be stimulating, eye-catching and touch all your senses. I don’t think the South African media industry really know how to enter awards properly.

Nurock: That’s a really big learning. There’s probably some incredible work being done, but just not packaged properly.

Taback: That’s exactly it. I think we should go back to South Africa and have a little workshop on how to enter awards, not just Cannes, but other global awards and even Loeries. There’s a way of doing it, and all the past media judges at Cannes should get together and present what we believe as great ways of winning awards, especially from a media point of view.

Click here for a reminder of Taback’s views on creativity and here for the full table of 2016 Cannes Lions Media Lions winners.