take your time

May 13, 2009

Young Lions - dedicated to creative, not frustrated people

there was a disturbing article in iqads. so-called article. actually a bunch of accusations and frustrations. i can take a personal opinion, as strong as it may be or a subjective perspective of things. but i will never get the lack of self discipline and common sense. so i write this post. here and in english. why? because i've been trying to comment directly to the article a few times and my comment didn't show up. and in english, because maybe, at some point in time, michael conrand himself will come across this and read a few lines. as he is part of the subject of this article.

so, what is the article about and what did happen?
it's related to the young lions competition, where people were invited to solve a brief, within 24 hours, send the solutions and wait to be judged. then there was michael conrad, who came to romania invited by the alternative school for creative thinking and tempo advertising to teach people sime great stuff about advertising. and then the selection of the solutions to the brief. michael conrad made his selection. he had to choose a winning outdoor, so that the authors could go to cannes and participate at young lions print. ok. so, he chose an ad. based on a previous selection, after having read the brief. so it was some one's ad. not these girls' ad. if it were me, i would have chosen the publicis' team ad - a far better one, in my opinion. but it was his choice. as he is the more experienced one, professor, creative, jury in cannes and all other things. i don't see publicis team complaining in such a way. because they know what fair-play is.
ok. then what? rumors about the fact that michael conrad might not have seen the solutions before, might not have known the brief, might have had a bad decision on selecting that particular ad. and eventually, accusations that the judging process was not at all transparent and correctly done.
if people argue even about a decision made by michael conrad himself, well then, they have too much of an ego.

my opinion about all this? people can think whatever they want and have a personal opinion. but only when they know all the facts. otherwise they just make stupid remarks. i can also agree that the judging process could have been more open to discussion. but then again, it's an opinion. if i want to check it and argue about it, i call the people directly in charge and talk about it. but the girls who wrote the above mentioned article, thought to make it public. and more than that, mocking and asking all kinds of questions as to make themselves heard. then there were loads of comments. some irrelevant, some extremely angry, some extremely sad and pathetic.

maybe all these people work in advertising. but i hope there is a balance somewhere to make it up for all these hatred ideas.

and when someone replied, there was another flood of comments. they jumped over eliza's reaction and made it all trashy. it's just so sad. and unprofessional. and men. very mean. why can't people digest the information first and take full responsibility of their actions when participating in a competition and implicitly its results? why can't people be honest? when you disagress about the lack of transparency of the organizers, why not address them directly? why not try to really solve the problem? because having written down all those frustrations on a public website (which should focus more on writing about the real performances of the Alternative School), doesn't solve a damn thing. and i know they know. they just wanted to show off. and what a waste and a sad thing to do. on advertising websites, people should debate creatives ideas, not frustrations.

too bad the vanity in advertising spread towards people as well. i thought it was just related to ideas. which is another sad thing to feel.
it the girls' idea were to be the winning one, would they have been complaining the same way? i really don't think so.
it's good and healthy for this industry to take a stand and make your point when you feel something is wrong. but come on!! to take it so low and turn everything into a mockery?!

by the way, the fact that the winner can no longer participate, has also an argument. if people stopped talking rumors and actually digg to find out that hw wasn't actually fulfilling all the requirements. that would be a fantasy come true. the solution had to come from a team (art and copy), as when possibly selected for young lions, there will be a team representing romania, as everyone else. he did inscribe the ad as being made by him and a colleague, but actually, the other guy was discovered to know nothing about it. when asked, he didn't want to take credits for something he dind't do. so, what is it so hard to ask and find out the truth, instead of doing all this crazy gossip?!

taking a step aside from the article and referring to the comments, i would have to say that people seem too stressed out. if they can take their time to comment in such a way, mostly irrelevant to the topic and throw accusations here and there, then it seems either they don't communicate efficiently, either they keep too many things inside.

if people knew the real effort that teodora migdalovici and other professors are making to get the young people, very well trained in order to go to cannes, always looking for sponsors and offer them all the best classes within this school. if people knew the great significance of a sponsorship, such as the one done by Tempo with 15forCannes or by Impression with Young Lions for the last 2 years. if people were to speak when asked and only by having all the facts. how would that be? i would not know. because i haven't seen such a thing in this horrible debate. which actually is not a debate. as people debating, always have solid arguments either pros or cons.

as for comparing advertising schools in romania, i wouldn't go down that road. each school is different. each one offers different things. tou can learn the basics eveywhere. depends on what follows. the Alternative School goes beyond the basics and the simple classes. students who did it, know better. people who can make a difference, know better. if all schools were the same, what would be the purpose of creating them?

anyway, it is sad. people throwing accusations into others faces when it all started from a complaint that could have been so simply solved. but when people don't know where to look and what to look for, they just open their mouth and spit.

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