Why Amnesia Razorfish opted out of Hot or Cold.

Post by @eunmac – Founder of Amnesia Razorfish.

Hi, I usually try and fly under the radar with these contentious issues but felt it time to pop up to explain myself possibly at the risk of sounding like a bit of a t**ser! I’ve noticed there are a lot of questions (and even criticism) around why Amnesia, Deepend, White Agency, Host and Webqem all opted out of Bannerblog and Campaign Brief’s Hot or Cold list. Rather than leave people hanging and wondering why we abstained, I thought I’d put the record straight.

Three reasons Amnesia Razorfish does not want to be involved in the Hot or Cold list:

1. Don’t make others feel bad. These kind of rankings are not like normal awards which celebrate excellence. Unfortunately one of the long debated issues about the Hot or Cold format is that it allows a select few agencies to feel really good about themselves at the expense of many other hard working agencies who don’t tally up. As an agency we feel things need to be judged on merit and to reward good work, but not at the expense of others that for the most part are trying their best. It may not be their fault they do not perform well. One of the other agencies who also dropped out (left as anonymous) summed it up perfectly below:

“My fundamental issue with a list is just that, it’s a list; it has someone at the top and by definition it has someone at the bottom. How would you feel today getting into work today to be told the agency you are working for or running or are the creative director of is “cold”. We all work stupidly hard at what ever we do, it is offensive to be labeled cold, below average, uncreative or just plain s**t regardless of who or what body determines that. The reason we have awards are to award those of us that are doing well, not demoralise those of us who are trying. I am not interested in beating my chest at someone else’s expense and making people who work f****g hard feel like s**t.” – (Anonymous quote from one of the other agencies).

2. It’s not just about creative. Seriously, can you judge a digital agency merely by its cover?

Let’s be 100% clear on what Hot or Cold is judged on: it is based purely on creative. Although creative is one of Amnesia’s core pillars here (see below) and something we’ve won many awards for we fundamentally do not believe creative works in isolation in the digital landscape. In my opinion the assertion that ‘the best digital agency is also the one that is best at creative’ would be grossly misleading. There are a lot of great agencies that I consider to be contenders for ‘excellent’ in digital (but whose strengths are other than creative) for example; The Hallway, Datalicious or Downstream Marketing. Surely they would be mandatory on a comprehensive list or audit of agencies offering digital services, yet this was one of the objectives of Hot or Cold during it’s formulation, something it fails to do in it’s current form. To assert Hot or Cold is somehow an audit of the digital landscape is grossly misleading when great digital specialists in Search, Strategy, Media, Social, Analytics or agencies who provide more than just creative aren’t included. There has been a conversation that the next round will tackle ‘technical’ but again this falls way woefully short of the full picture in my view.

The reality for agencies is that the success of their work is judged in real life by the client and the consumer in the form of engagement, measurable results and return on investment /objectives. Hot or Cold is only judged by Creative Directors. I’m a Creative Director by trade, I’ve judged many many awards over the years and to put it bluntly I simply would not feel comfortable judging a whole agency based on their creative output alone when it’s just one facet of the overall output and experience clients and consumers have. Let me be clear though I’m not against judging creative at all but there are a ton of awards that already do this, and ones that don’t imply that ones that didn’t win didn’t offer value. Whilst I know most of the judging panel and have deep respect for them, I do not believe it is up to a bunch of CDs to determine the overall rankings of an agency. Perhaps if Hot or Cold renamed the list to ‘Is Your Creative Department Hot or Cold’ it would be a little more apt given who’s judging and what is being judged.

3. No more feeding the agency BS, thanks very much.

The one thing I’ve always liked about the digital industry is for the vast majority of the time we all get on very well. Personally I cannot stand agency politics, the pulling of rugs from under others feet, the one-upmanship, the backstabbing. I’ve seen it first hand and I just can’t bear it. Maybe I’m dreaming, but at least let me dream. That said, I’m no hippy and I like to win pitches, but under it all we need to get on. The future of digital means we have to collaborate to make the best of an evolving landscape. I hang out with many of the other owners of digital agencies, we socialise and we are open and honest with each other about how we all get better at what we do. We sometimes share different views but we handle them in good spirit. I view Hot or Cold as ‘part of the old world of advertising’, not the new one. We don’t need to inherit the old ways. Sure, Hot or Cold makes an interesting headline and gets people talking but for me it’s too shallow, and creates unnecessary tension between agencies. So although I do respect Ash and his intention to see it become more productive, it’s not something we want to be part of as it stands.

Disclaimer ahead: Nothing to hide regarding Amnesia’s creativity:

Above: Some of our work from the last 12 months. A couple of people have questioned whether the missing agencies were hiding the fact they had no creative. Let me address this through another set of awards which also judges creative – Amnesia is a finalist for AdNews Digital Agency of the Year again. You don’t get to be in the last four unless your work is outstanding. Our confidence in our creative output has nothing to do with the reason we did not enter Hot or Cold. 

Wrapping up.
At the end of the day everything above is just my humble opinion. I respect the views of others and their desire to see the list happen. It should not mean we (Amnesia) have to enter. in fact as it stands I would not enter even if we assured of scoring 95/100.  Let’s keep it, but only for those who want to be in it.

I’m not trying to stop Hot or Cold. The agencies that like it, want it and agree with it should of course be allowed to continue. The ones that don’t should be allowed to abstain without question. If an audit or useful chart needs to be produced to better paint agency skills and capabilities there are better ways to do this. Unfortunately there are forces who want to force us to participate in the future. This has been accompanied by a thinly veiled threat that Amnesia will be judged and plotted on a table even if the judges do not have any real view or knowledge of its creative output. I hope it does not come down to that.

Finally, I do not want to take the shine away from those who did well. So… in the best spirit possible congratulations to Soap, a great digital outfit that does super creative work, worth a title or two and more than deserves a place on the medals table.

Thanks for listening. Of course I don’t expect everyone to agree, yep that’s part of the fun so as always …comments and feedback welcome

@eunmac.