The semi-final countdown

JOHANNESBURG AD AGENCY Ogilvy is in the lead as the Loerie Awards race enters its final stage. The agency has 64 finalists contending for a trophy in early October. There’s no great surprise in that, as Ogilvy has been on top of the creative heap for two of the past four years. But how many will be converted into trophies?

The release of the list of around 1 100 finalists gives some clues as to the likely winners. But with such a long list, the indications are weak and generalised. More than a third of the entries made it into the finalist stage, but most of those won’t be converted into winners. The awards will whittle that number of winners down to less than 10% of the total entry.

Some agencies have a better track record than others of converting finalists into winners. But for most it’s a matter of luck.

There are a number of surprises in the list:

* TBWA Hunt Lascaris, which over the past 15 months earned worldwide acclaim for its Trillion Dollar Campaign, garnering more awards than any other campaign ever, hasn’t maintained the momentum, slipping back to sixth.

* Draftfcb Johannesburg, a normally reliable but not spectacular winner of awards, is in second place.

* DDB Johannesburg, winner of a Cannes Grand Prix two years ago, is back among the pack leaders.

* FoxP2, a star creative hotshop over the past five years, does it again. Fourth place puts it ahead of many agencies that are much bigger.

* MetropolitanRepublic looks ready for its first good year at the Loeries.

* Y&R Johannesburg is the unexpected success story of the awards roundabout, but it slipped up this time. It’s lying second in the progressive point count so far this year, but 16th in the Loerie finalists tally.

* Joe Public is also making a surge and could have its best year ever – if it converts a reasonable percentage of these finalists.

* Net#work BBDO Johannesburg, SA’s second-best awards winner over the past decade, is lying 10th.

However, the key to success is the rate of conversion of finalists into awards. How have we done in the past? We’ve taken the top 10 finalist winners in 2008 and shown the ratio of creative points per finalist. The results vary widely (see table). The best were FoxP2 and Joe Public, with close to 100 points – almost equivalent to a Silver Loerie – for every finalist.

Ogilvy Johannesburg achieved 55 points, roughly equivalent to a Bronze Loerie for every finalist, as did Jupiter Johannesburg.

Ogilvy headed the lists of both finalists and points, but only two others were close to that kind of equality.

The conclusion is clear: each entry has to work harder.

These results don’t include the student competition.