The competition

The Philippines has more entries as a percentage of the total in radio than any other category. 24 out of 1018. And this is the only category where we have a judge - me. So it's fair to say I'm feeling the weight of expectation of an entire nation that I can vouch for the virtues of one or more of these entries and push them to 'radio glory.' As the title of the blog has it, there is an option if any of these don't win - enter the new KBP radio awards (www.kbpradioawards.com) but hey, as of now we're all in there with a chance.

One thing that happens as a judge is that you suddenly start getting emails from people you met 10 years ago attaching their entries 'just so you know.' To prevent any accusations of bias (and because I never got round to opening the attachments) I can safely say I haven't heard any of these. At the same time I have to say I haven't received many of the entries from other local agencies. Maybe they think I already know them. Or maybe they think if I know them I won't vote for them. Oh well. The only way to judge ads is on your immediate response to them. As soon as you start analyzing it too much you allow for the possibility of other factors to affect your judgement.

As Matthew Bull of Lowe Worldwide put it recently 'An ad done by your friend seems slightly better than one done by someone you don't know. An ad done for your client's largest competitor is always seems slightly worse than it is.' Uh oh. If he's worried about bias I guess we all should be. Which is why there are 16 of us. And why the lowest and highest votes are ignored. And if you vote for your own country too much you'll be kicked out. Or shamed in front of the 10,000 strong palais crowd. It was HIM! He voted all the Filipino stuff 10! And everything else 0! Well perhaps not. But you get the idea.