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The One Club of Creativity Special Section

#OneShow2019: Pete Khoury's integrated, experiential and immersive judging panel insights

The One Club for Creativity's Creative Week is just around the corner, taking place in New York City from 6 to 10 May 2019. Here, SA's own Pete Khoury shares his experiences as a juror on this year's One Show integrated, experiential and immersive panels.
The only pic of Khoury at this year's One Show judging in the Dominican Republic, with other members of his jury.
The only pic of Khoury at this year's One Show judging in the Dominican Republic, with other members of his jury.

Pete Khoury is a busy man. Not only is he Creative Circle SA chairperson, he’s also chief creative officer at TBWA\Hunt\Lascaris, and judged entries in The One Show Integrated discipline. Who better, with TBWA\Hunt\Lascaris named South African Agency of the Year at last year's One Show awards?

Luckily, ‘the Khourster’ always makes sweet time to talk to us, especially when the topic of discussion is about creativity.

Here, he shares insights from this year’s One Show judging experience as well as what to expect from The One Club for Creativity’s Creative Week 2019…

BizcommunityLet’s set the scene… Describe the Dominican Republic as a creative award judging destination.
The Dominican Republic is a lot like Mauritius. It is a four-hour flight from New York. There’s an amazing local culture in specific areas, and then a lot of spectacular resorts and entertainment.

You can’t help but feel relaxed and centred in such beautiful surroundings. If you wake up early enough and have a walk or a swim in the sea, you get to experience the land and energy before judging starts in your air-conditioned darkroom.

BizcommunityNice. What did you most enjoy about this year’s One Show judging experience?
The One Show is a lot more democratic than any other international award show I have judged. Discussions were limited, and you really got the opportunity to judge the work based on your own personal feelings towards it, without the pressure of having to please the room.

BizcommunityLet’s take that a little further: Describe your personal judging process and how you stuck to the brief.
We first get down to a shortlist by ranking a piece of work out of ten. We judge for metal from there, where you vote for gold, silver, bronze, merit or no award. Once all the jurors’ scores have been combined into an average, we get to see the pieces of work that rose to the top.

Then we have discussions about the awarded work and every juror can give input.

But discussions are limited to positive affirmations, and on our jury there was no president, so the conversation and flow depends on the case a specific juror puts forward on a piece of work. If you do want to adjust your scores you can, but these adjusted scores are not revealed like they are in other award shows, which then often leads to another, more intense discussion if the scores don’t reflect the case a certain juror put forward.
This allows people to judge openly and honestly, based on how a piece of work really makes you feel as an individual.

BizcommunityLove that. Without giving too much away, talk us through the quantity and overall calibre of entries you judged and any stand-out trends.
I judged for the integrated, experiential and immersive categories. There was a lot of very powerful work on show. Some of the work was work that the jurors had already seen, in shows like Cannes and then there was some new, fresh work that none of us had seen.
The work that won showed originality, an understanding of the brand and its place in culture and often had some technology aspect to it. There were a lot of tech-based or data-driven ideas and executions that had no real story to them, or had a gimmick with a superficial brand link. This kind of work was booted out early. It was refreshing to see a broad range of work for real briefs, which addressed real consumer problems.
That work that made the cut didn’t necessarily feel as worthy or as purpose-driven as some other award shows. Some brands were just having fun and pushing their campaigns into provocative and compelling places.

Sounds like fun, but of course the real fun times come ahead, when we learn the results at the award shows. Fingers crossed for all our finalists!

Keep an eye on our One Show Awards special section, where roving reporter Ann Nurock will be sharing insights and interviews on all her One Show Creative Week experiences. Also be sure to follow Nurock as well as the SA Creative Circle, Bizcommunity and The One Club for Creativity on Twitter for the latest updates.

About Leigh Andrews

Leigh Andrews AKA the #MilkshakeQueen, is former Editor-in-Chief: Marketing & Media at Bizcommunity.com, with a passion for issues of diversity, inclusion and equality, and of course, gourmet food and drinks! She can be reached on Twitter at @Leigh_Andrews.
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