Awards exist for the benefit of many, not to fuel inflated egos. (Perspective).(Paul Belford and Nigel Roberts make changes to win award)(Brief Article)

John Hegarty, the chairman of the Campaign Press Advertising Awards jury, received a curious letter last week from Peter Buchanan of COI Communications. Buchanan was delighted to see that his child protection campaign about paedophiles and the internet had picked up a silver award for best black-and-white campaign. It's just that the awarded ads bore scant relation to the ads which ran--which is a bit odd, isn't it?

The answer is yes, it is odd. And the shameful truth is that Paul Belford and Nigel Roberts, the Ogilvy creative directors responsible for the ads, changed them prior to submission. The word "devious" was reintroduced to one headline. The UK Online logo was removed. The ads appeared as single pages but the ones entered were of a DPS format with resulting changes in art direction.

Another winner by the same pair, an ad entitled "Big Ears" for The Samaritans, won a silver award for best charity advertisement. In this case we have learned that the ad ran as a poster only. As a poster it carried a telephone response number, which was removed for the fake entry in the press awards. For the record, let me explain the system of checks and balances that Campaign applies to make the voting transparently fair. Half the jury comprised editors, media owners and clients, the rest were creative directors. No judge can vote for the work produced by his or her agency and where such ads crop up, an average of the rest of the jury's mark is given. On entering the awards an agency must state which major ...