JURY CHAIRMAN, STEVE HARRISON | OUTGOING WORLDWIDE CREATIVE DIRECTOR | WUNDERMAN DIRECT

Across the group, the work in direct marketing is 'good' not 'great'. In mitigation, it has been produced under difficult circumstances. As we all know, it’s relatively easy to achieve high creative standards in an agency dealing with domestic clients. Network agencies, like ours, which serve the needs of international business have it much harder. Harder but not impossible. If we genuinely want to deliver on the promise to provide our clients with great creative, we need a top-down cultural and strategic commitment in each network.

Looking at the Direct awards, I'm not surprised to see Ogilvy dominate. It's over ten years since I worked there yet it was clear even then that high quality creative was a shared goal. This involved the intra-network nurturing and transference of not just creatives but, most crucially, also planners, account people and leaders who understood the value of better work. It has paid them dividends. If we, their friends and rivals, don't follow that lead then our work will continue, as a wise man once said, "to pass like a ship in the night".

I admire this campaign because it has qualities lacking in many of the dm and 360 entries that I judged. It has been created by individuals (planning, account management, production, creative and client) who understand the overriding importance of a single-minded customer proposition. It has big ideas across a range of media that engage the prospect by dramatising that proposition. It seeks to persuade with news and facts. And it worked. In short, these people know exactly what they are doing.