Bates Dorland is offering staff sizeable cash incentives if they can win
top trophies at one of the industry’s five major awards, including D&AD
and the British Television Advertising Awards.
The pounds 20,000 booty will be weighted towards the creative team,
although account and planning teams will also take a cut.
The other awards included in the scheme are the Cannes International
Advertising Festival, Campaign’s Press and Poster awards and the IPA
Effectiveness Awards. In most cases, money will only be given for a
Grand Prix or a gold, although a D&AD silver will also count.
The initiative has been instigated by Tim Ashton, Bates’ creative
director, and Graham Hinton, its chairman, in a bid to raise creativity
to the top of the agency’s agenda. Hinton ran a similar system, but with
lower cash incentives, when he was chairman of DMB&B.
Ashton said: ‘The quality of the work has gone up here, and we are very
close to hitting the big time. Ads have got to be the focus of the
agency. ’
However, the move has been dubbed short-sighted by industry peers who
insist it will spark internal strife and send out the wrong signals to
clients.
Patrick Collister, Ogilvy and Mather’s executive creative director,
said: ‘If you have got a confident creative director and a confident
creative department you don’t need to offer cash.’
John Hooper, the Incorporated Society of British Advertisers’ director
general, welcomed the scheme but warned: ‘Creativity for creativity’s
sake is a waste of time. It is important to show a link between creative
breakthrough and effectiveness.’
