±±¾©Èü³µpk10

After the inaugural D&AD new-media awards last year, I wrote that

the day a fully fledged advertising agency creative walked on to the

stage to collect a prize, we would know new media had come of age.

Well, it’s finally happened. Not at D&AD but at the equally prestigious

Cannes International Advertising Festival last month. The man in

question was Marcus Vinton, the Ogilvy & Mather creative director, who

has been responsible in the past year for some notable work for KFC and

the Samaritans and who also oversaw the design of ±±¾©Èü³µpk10’s website,

±±¾©Èü³µpk10Live.

The fact that Vinton’s trip to the podium in Cannes was to collect a

gold Cyber lion for the ±±¾©Èü³µpk10Live site is, of course, a source of

pride for the team here. But it’s not the most important point. What

matters more is that the success of Vinton and his copywriter partner,

Alun Howell - who was on holiday during Cannes week - is proof to those

creatives who are still sniffy about the internet that it has a rightful

place in the world of advertising and that they ignore it at their

peril. Hopefully, it is also an incentive for them to get involved.

At the moment, however, cyberphobes out there might still dismiss the

Cyber lions as third-division awards, not as glitzy as a press or poster

gold, and certainly not in the same league as the film awards. The

problem with this attitude is that it is not only illogical - good work

is good work, whatever the medium - and snotty in the extreme, it is

also dangerously short-sighted.

Digital TV may have its critics and I am certainly more sceptical than

many about the speed at which the public will take it up. But make no

mistake, it is the future. A quick glance at the governmental and

corporate forces, which have a vested interest in making digital work,

should be enough to convince even the most ignorant of people of this.

The fact that it also brings with it real consumer advantages seems to

have been forgotten in recent months as technological problems have

delayed its launch and the sheer cost, albeit subsidised, has made the

proposition less attractive than the powers-that-be had hoped.

Don’t let this fool you. There remains no excuse for advertising

agencies not taking the onset of digital seriously. Even if you feel

able to dismiss PC-based new media, such as the net and CD-Roms, as the

territory of the geek, you must know by now that this interactive world

will one day invade television.

How long will it be before those prestigious film and TV gongs at Cannes

and the D&AD awards go to an interactive ad? Longer, perhaps, than we

have had to wait for an agency creative to pick up a new-media award,

but soon enough to worry those writers and art directors for whom this

area is still a mystery.

Even if you feel able to dismiss PC-based new media, such as the net and

CD-Roms, as the territory of the geek, you must know by now that this

interactive world will one day invade television.