McLennan pointed out that the circle is not abandoning its ranking, just the points, and that quality and quantity will now have equal weighting. Reasons given for the new system are:

Firstly, one of the reason's the points system was created was because various publications and others in the industry were creating their own points list which differed from each other, which created a bunch of confusion in the marketplace. So the idea was to standardise the points for all the endorsed awards festivals, and then for the creative circle to take ownership of that and release a yearly table by agency group and immediately after every endorsed award.

Clearly, this year, even with our points system, much confusion and, ahem, debate reigned post the last Loerie awards. The points system was interpreted in a number of different permutations by the industry and the agency groups, depending on how an agency or agency group wanted to swing it, compounded by the fact that an initial different Loerie points list was sent out first, followed by an official Creative Circle one.

Also, as everyone has pointed out, there has been a growing obsession with the point list. There has been debate over the points system and group vs. individual agency ranking than pretty much anything else at the exco's [sic], as opposed to figuring out how to make the work better. There have been more complaints over the amount of awards versus quality versus amount of points versus etc. than ever before.

So after seeing the Olympics table in the morning paper a little while ago, it struck us that their table is simple, works universally, without language, without caveats and explanations, and realised we'd possibly overcomplicated the issues with regards to the complex, interpretive, statistically heavy points system. By scanning the Olympic results table, one can immediately pick up who is the overall winner, and who has won the most golds, silvers etc, leaving everyone with a much clearer picture of who the strongest agency is in terms of quantity and quality.

MLennan stated that the Creative Circle will still endorse the same list of awards, which at this stage remains the same. It will also release a ratified table per endorsed award and an official yearly table from the Creative Circle for publishing, (including the Loeries awards). All of the award results will be issued and ranked as an agency group and then again as an individual agency.

The existing points system will remain until the end of the calendar year.

[16 Sep 2008 10:45]

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