Apex Awards, or How to Make Fudge

The creative. It's all about the creative, isn't it. Even when it's all about the results it's still all about the creative. At least that's what the Apex Awards judges would have us believe. I attended the show at Vodaworld on Thursday, 21, May. A good time was had by all. But I do have a few gripes about some of the winners.

For instance, the KFC milkshake ad that won something or other in one of the three categories. It's hard to remember exactly what because the disk that came with the handout pack at the end of the evening only has last year's case studies on it. Anyway, here's the deal; we were told their controversial "milkshake" ad, (you know, the one where the little girl lies and cries to get her hands on the little boy's milkshake), increased sales of the product (milkshakes) by a whopping 200%! Gadzooks! 200%. That's pretty effective, right?

Normally it would be. But if you've never sold the product before you only have to sell two of them to increase sales by any amount you care to name. Off course, effective is not just about sales, it's about profit. Unless you know how much was spent to produce and flight an ad, and how much was raked in over and above that amount in profit, you don't really know how effective the ad is.

So it's pretty easy to fudge the numbers.

If this is the Apex, I'd hate to see the base.

Last night my "insider" connection attended the APEX awards, held at Emperor's Palace on the east Rand (methinks the Ekurhuleni municipality is fighting a losing battle to foist this ridiculous name on us).

According to my source, the food was fine, the entertainment was so-so, and the entries were dismal.

Of course the usual gang of idiots (I mean that in a loving kind of way) were all represented; Jupiter, Network, Ogilvy... (surprising by their absence, at least among the APEX recipients, was Hunt Lascaris , although I'm reliably informed they did have some people there).

Organized by the Association for Communication and Advertising (ACA), The APEX Awards are supposed to be about effective advertising. There are only three categories:

• Launch - Brands or services which are new, or have no significant history of advertising.
• Change - New campaigns from previously advertised brands, which resulted in significant short term effects on sales and/or behaviour.
• Sustain - Advertising campaigns which benefited a business by maintaining or strengthening a brand over a long period.

These definitions come direct from the ACA website ( ACA is the organisation that runs APEX).

As you'll quickly fathom out, these are pretty hazy criteria for judging the effectiveness of any advertising. Nothing here about increased sales - except the somewhat vague, weasel-worded "significant short term effects on sales and/or behavior" - or about anything else that really constitutes effective advertising. Perhaps it's escaped the attention of whoever laid out these criteria that a "significant short term effects on sales" could cut both ways. So if my ad actually causes a significant sales slump, would that make me eligible for and APEX?

Because no-one actually has to prove anything, the usual suspects collect the gongs and can now trumpet about how "effective" their creative ads are.

Let me be absolutely clear here; I don't say creative advertising doesn't work. What I do say is that if your efforts are focused on awards then they are not focused on sales. Advertising that is sales focused looks very different to advertising designed to impress awards judges.

No matter how much lip service is paid by the creative agencies whose names crop up with such regular monotony at the black tie, mutual back-slapping sessions, they really have no way of proving anything.

So, the APEX, who won what? My contact can't remember. What the heck, does it matter anyway?