I attended the 7th annual Ice Awards at Pier 21 last Friday and was treated to what I believe to be the most glamorous awards show in Halifax. Pity that the local TV stations don’t cover such events. God forbid people turn on their TVs and come across an urban looking local event on Eastlink or Global that doesn’t look like it was filmed with a cell phone camera on a hundred dollar budget.
For those who don’t know, the Ice Awards is an awards show that celebrates creative advertising and marketing made in Atlantic Canada (‘ICE’ stands for Innovation, Creativity, and Enterprise). To see the winning ads, you can visit the ICE website or click on the TV below.
Halifax-based agencies Extreme and Colour, and Newfoundland-based Target took home the majority of awards.
One thing I noticed while mingling with the local advertising crowd is their common use of Twitter. Now, while I pride myself for having above-average knowledge of social marketing and interaction tools, I must confess that I never really adopted the micro messaging site, or really understood why people use it. For Arabic users, a similar site called WatWet.com offers the same service.
In comes the ‘In Plain English’ series from the folks at CommonCraft.com, a service by a young couple based in Seattle who specialize in ‘explanations’. They produce short fun tutorial and training clips to explain, in plain English, whatever you want them to explain. An excellent substitute to boring corporate training videos that make you want to take a toothpick to your eyes for all the bad 80′s style cinematography you just had to endure.
So, if you are like me and you just don’t get what eveyrone is ‘Twittering’ about, here is Twitter – In Plain English.
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Nice article. It just goes to show that the Canadians are becoming the
Meh
They aren’t covered because they’re a sham. It’s run by the ad agencies to pat themselves on the back.
A credible awards show would actually let the people who consume the ads tell us what campaigns are effective, not the cirle-j**k that is ICE awards.
Issmat A.
Interesting perspective. But the same can be said about most televised award shows, the Oscars being the most watched of them all.
Besides, most TV programming is broadcasted based on its entertainment value, not merit. This is not to say that the awards were not merited. The judges panel included professionals and industry captains from across Canada and internationally. Their opinion must count for something.
However, I do agree that a people or ‘consumer’ element is missing. At least a ‘people’s vote’ category should be included. Maybe all nominated ads can be posted on their website prior to the awards and viewers can give thumbs up to the ads they like.
datter
I worked behind the scenes at two ICE Awards (the year the Trailer Park Boys hosted, and the year after that) and had a great time. Yes, it’s a bit of a typical circle-jerk as far as the awards themselves go… I mean there are a lot of great independent designers around town, and smaller firms too that tend to go unnoticed at these things. It’s definitely “by the big local firms, for the big local firms”. Maybe someone should arrange a “Fire Awards” show for everyone else in the area.
datter
PS- I guess you never started twittering?
Issmat A.
Thanks for the insight, datter.
You are right about twitter, I don’t think I have the discipline required to twitter my updates in any meaningful frequency.
Issmat A.
Psst… I just read that, a couple of weeks ago, Twitter announced they are discontinuing their service to Canada. Atleast they are stopping texting your twitter updates to Canadian cellphones (our great Canadian carriers are killing them with text fees).
Yet another technological casualty of Canada’s exuberant mobile charges.
Canadian Carriers: killing mobile technology adoption since the invention of the cell phone!
Porsche Leber
Good read, I really enjoyed it. Thanks for adding this, could be very useful in the future to me!