DIARY: Now don't send real creative work to this awards show

Somebody had to do it. Australia's national award show, AWARD, has found a cheeky solution to the scam ads controversy - it's rolling out Scamfest. About time too.

by | 04/19/2002

Modelled on Australia's short film festival Tropfest, the new event gives creatives the chance to win prizes for that great idea that never saw the light of day or one rejected by the client.

AWARD is positioning Scamfest as a "fun, irreverent, ideas-based competition

open to anyone working in or outside of the advertising industry.

If you haven't yet guessed what the top prize is, here goes - it's the Taronga, a reference to the Sydney zoo which was unwittingly dragged into a scam ad scandal at Cannes 2000.

Scamfest is offering four categories: the first three require creatives to follow a brief, while the fourth is an open category and "scammers can attempt as many and/or as little as they like. The medium is entirely up to you. Let's face it, there are no clients to tell you otherwise", the brochure says.

And in a novel twist, Scamfest has issued a very strict rule: "Anyone caught entering real work for a real client will have their work banned for up to 10 years,

quips AWARD chairman Rowan Dean.

Looks like the tables have been turned. Now creatives doing real work will know what it feels like to be spat on.