Clio Awards
Encyclopedia
The Clio Awards are annual awards bestowed to reward innovation and creative excellence in advertising
Advertising
Advertising is a form of communication used to persuade an audience to take some action with respect to products, ideas, or services. Most commonly, the desired result is to drive consumer behavior with respect to a commercial offering, although political and ideological advertising is also common...

, design
Design
Design as a noun informally refers to a plan or convention for the construction of an object or a system while “to design” refers to making this plan...

 and communication
Communication
Communication is the activity of conveying meaningful information. Communication requires a sender, a message, and an intended recipient, although the receiver need not be present or aware of the sender's intent to communicate at the time of communication; thus communication can occur across vast...

. The categories include work in nearly all types of media, and the judges are advertising professionals from around the world.

History

The awards, founded by Wallace A. Ross in 1959, are named for the Greek goddess Clio
Clio
thumb|Clio—detail from [[The Art of Painting|The Allegory of Painting]] by [[Johannes Vermeer]]In Greek mythology, Clio or Kleio, is the muse of history. Like all the muses, she is a daughter of Zeus and Mnemosyne...

, the mythological Muse
Muse
The Muses in Greek mythology, poetry, and literature, are the goddesses who inspire the creation of literature and the arts. They were considered the source of the knowledge, related orally for centuries in the ancient culture, that was contained in poetic lyrics and myths...

 known as "the proclaimer, glorifier and celebrator of history, great deeds and accomplishments." They were first given in 1960 for excellence in television advertising by the American TV and Radio Commercials Festival. Each winner received a gold George Olden designed statuette. The competition was expanded to include work on international television and movies in 1966, then radio ads in the United States for 1967.

The Clio Awards were acquired by Bill Evans in 1972 for $150,000 and the Clios became a profitable "for profit" company.
Evan's promotion increased the award's prestige for nearly two decades. At one point, the company's income was $2.5 million per year, primarily Clio nomination fees of $70 to $100 per entry.

Evans expanded competition by including U.S. Print advertising in 1971; International Print advertising in 1972; International Radio advertising in 1974; U.S. Packaging design in 1976; International Packaging design and U.S. Specialty advertising in 1977; U.S. Cable advertising in 1983; and Hispanic advertising in 1987.

The rules for the 1984 award required that the entry publicly appear during the calendar year 1983. In order to be eligible, Chiat/Day needed to run Apple Computer's 1984 commercial for the Macintosh
Macintosh
The Macintosh , or Mac, is a series of several lines of personal computers designed, developed, and marketed by Apple Inc. The first Macintosh was introduced by Apple's then-chairman Steve Jobs on January 24, 1984; it was the first commercially successful personal computer to feature a mouse and a...

 computer prior to Super Bowl XVIII
Super Bowl XVIII
Super Bowl XVIII was an American football game played on January 22, 1984, at Tampa Stadium in Tampa, Florida, deciding the National Football League champion following the 1983 regular season. The American Football Conference champion Los Angeles Raiders defeated the National Football Conference...

. In December 1983, Apple purchased time on KMVT
KMVT
KMVT is the CBS affiliated television station in Twin Falls, Idaho. Its digital signal is broadcast over Channel 11. Its transmitter is located on Flat Top Butte near Jerome.-History:...

 in Twin Falls, Idaho
Twin Falls, Idaho
Twin Falls is the county seat and largest city of Twin Falls County, Idaho, United States. The population was 44,125 at the 2010 censusTwin Falls is the largest city of Idaho's Magic Valley region...

, after the normal sign-off and recorded the broadcast in order to qualify.

1991

The 1991 ceremony is referred as "The Most Bizarre Event in Advertising History," because it was a complete debacle.

Attendees who had paid the $125 admission price did not have tickets waiting at the door, as promised. Also missing were Clio officials and Clio President, Bill Evans. The event did not start on time; in fact, people stood around drinking, schmoozing and trading rumors about Evans and the Clio organization for over two hours. Finally, the lights dimmed and the band started playing. A man walked up to the microphone and began to speak. He identified himself as the caterer and announced that the master of ceremonies was a no-show, but that he would give it a shot. It started out well, but after being informed that there was no script and no winners list, he gave up and walked off. A second fellow walked onstage and began talking, but was not a polished speaker; it was obvious that he was inebriated.
Print ads were the first awards, and there were transparencies of the winning entries. As each image appeared on screen, the owner of the work was asked to come to the stage, pick up their Clio, and identify themselves and their agency. When the last award in the category was dispensed, the band began playing an interlude, and the emcee began singing. The audience began booing and throwing dinner rolls, and the drunk staggered offstage. Several minutes passed, but no one took his place. As the people began to leave, one man mounted the stage, strode to the table of remaining statuettes, snatched one up, and waved it as he left the stage. Two other individuals claimed their own awards; then suddenly, the stage was stampeded by a feeding frenzy of advertising executives, intent on the Clios that remained.

The event for television commercials, scheduled a few days later, was called off when the Clio Company didn't come up with cash for the facility's deposit.

The story behind the 1991 fiasco slowly emerged. Bill Evans began to delegate all responsibility for the Clios to his 11-person Clio staff in 1989. He'd stopped coming to the office, but continued to spend money at an alarming rate. Bills weren't paid and Evans would not return phone calls from the Clio office. Privately, the staff was worried about Evans' alleged drug addiction. He was offered loans if he would surrender financial control of the Clios, but he refused. After 3 people were arrested at Evans' home on drug charges, drug rumors escalated. At the end of April 1991, the Clio Company was broke. After going unpaid for most of May, the staff, which included Evans' daughter, walked out.

Post Evans

Clio Enterprises Inc., filed for bankruptcy on March 17, 1992 claiming $1.8 million in debts and indeterminate assets of at least $1 million.
Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

 publisher Ruth Ratny purchased the Clio name for an undisclosed figure. Evans had wanted $2 million, and trade publications reported a sale price of $10,000, which Ratny called low. Ratny reorganized the event as the New Clio Awards, and combined what had previously been two events into a single presentation, which was delayed from June until September, 1992. They overcame skeptics who pronounced the awards dead on arrival
Dead on arrival
Dead on arrival or D.O.A. is a term used to indicate that a patient was found to be already clinically dead upon the arrival of professional medical assistance, often in the form of first responders such as emergency medical technicians, paramedics, or police...

, although many ad firms refused to participate in the 1992 awards. Advertising Age
Advertising Age
Advertising Age is a magazine, delivering news, analysis and data on marketing and media. The magazine was started as a broadsheet newspaper in Chicago in 1930...

 magazine reported only 6,000 entries, less than one quarter of the 1990 total, and the number of categories judged was shrunk by 81 to 169. As a concession to the 1991 winners who had not yet received the trophy, their entry fee was waived. The 1990 award show at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts
Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts
Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts is a complex of buildings in the Lincoln Square neighborhood of New York City's Upper West Side. Reynold Levy has been its president since 2002.-History and facilities:...

 drew 1,800, while only 500 paid for the 1992 show at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel
Waldorf-Astoria Hotel
The Waldorf-Astoria is a luxury hotel in New York. It has been housed in two historic landmark buildings in New York City. The first, designed by architect Henry J. Hardenbergh, was on the Fifth Avenue site of the Empire State Building. The present building at 301 Park Avenue in Manhattan is a...

, which was hosted by Tony Randall
Tony Randall
Tony Randall was a U.S. actor, comic, producer and director.-Early years:Randall was born Arthur Leonard Rosenberg to a Jewish family in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the son of Julia and Mogscha Rosenberg, an art and antiques dealer...

. A total of 86 awards in 73 categories were handed out.
Another major change with the "New" Clios was direct competition between U.S. and foreign firms, which resulted in Swiss agency Comsult/Advico being named the winner of the best Television campaign. However, Comsult/Advico is owned by Young & Rubicam
Young & Rubicam
Y&R is a marketing and communications company specializing in advertising, digital and social media, sales promotion, direct marketing and brand identity consulting.-History:...

 in New York City.

However, the legacy of the "old" Clios wouldn't go away. A bankruptcy court ruled that the creditors of the 1991 Clio Awards should be paid. At the time, Ruth Ratny lacked the financial resources to settle the US$600,000 debt. Another Chicagoan, James M. Smyth, put up the money and became sole owner of the Clio Awards. Smyth, a film editor who'd founded film & video post production company Opt1mus in 1973, sold it in 1987 and retired as a multi-millionaire. On New Years Eve of 1992, he began working on the 1993 Clio awards show. The award ceremony was again delayed until September, but three respected advertising professionals agreed to join the Clio Executive Committee to lend credibility: Jay Chiat
Jay Chiat
[Morton] Jay Chiat was an American advertising designer.Chiat was born in the Bronx in New York City and grew up in Fort Lee, New Jersey. He attended Rutgers College, graduating in 1953 and was inducted in its Hall of Distinguished Alumni in 2000. As an adult he shortened his legal name to Jay Chiat...

 of TBWA\Chiat\Day, Rick Fizdale from Leo Burnett Worldwide
Leo Burnett Worldwide
Leo Burnett Worldwide is an American advertising company, created in 1935 by Leo Burnett. The company was opened in Chicago in 1935. In 1950 the company started its two first major advertising projects, for Kellogg’s and P&G....

 and Keith Reinhard at DDB Worldwide
DDB Worldwide
DDB Worldwide Communications Group Inc., known internationally as DDB, is a worldwide marketing communications network. It is owned by Omnicom Group Inc, one of the world's largest advertising holding companies...

.

The Clios regained their prestige and were sold to Dutch-owned company VNU Media in 1997. In 2007, VNU changed its name to the Nielsen Company. e5 Global Media
E5 Global Media
Prometheus Global Media, formerly e5 Global Media, is an American entertainment publishing company based in New York City. The company was formed by the sale of the entertainment and media division of Nielsen Business Media in December 2009....

 assumed control of the Clios in 2009 when they acquired magazines Adweek
Adweek
Adweek is a weekly American advertising trade publication that was first published in 1978....

 and Billboard
Billboard (magazine)
Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis...

 (among others) from Nielsen Business Media.

Judging

Clio is one of the largest awards programs of its kind. Its official press release indicates that in 2007 the competition received more than 19,000 entries from all over the world and enlisted a jury of more than 110 judges from 62 countries. Nearly two-thirds of the submissions come from outside the United States.

The judging criteria state that the idea is more important than the actual finished advertisement. Clio winners should be effective sales communication that affects and motivates the viewers and be believable, tasteful, and use imaginative techniques to enhance the message.

A shortlist of entries worthy of merit is developed from all entries submitted, and the names of the finalists are released in advance. From that, the judges vote to award the very best work with statues — bronze, silver or gold. The Clio judging process allows for more than one Gold, Silver or Bronze or, no winner at all within individual mediums (TV, Print, etc.). If judges determine a Gold winner is “best-of-the-best” in the media category, the Grand Clio may be given to that entry. Less than 1% receives the Gold award, and fewer than 3% of all entries receive any award, which are given at two separate events during the two-day Clio Conference.

Award

The Clio Awards are the world's most recognizable international advertising awards, celebrating fifty years in 2008. The best advertising is influential, interesting, and a cultural art form.

For the first 32 years, the award ceremony originated in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

, the center of the advertising universe. The awards today are very different from what it was like in the 1960s and 1970s, especially as portrayed in Mad Men
Mad Men
Mad Men is an American dramatic television series created and produced by Matthew Weiner. The series premiered on Sunday evenings on the American cable network AMC and are produced by Lionsgate Television. It premiered on July 19, 2007, and completed its fourth season on October 17, 2010. Each...

episode 45, "Waldorf Stories
Waldorf Stories
"Waldorf Stories" is the sixth episode of the fourth season of the American television drama series Mad Men, and the 45th overall episode of the series. It was written by Brett Johnson and series creator and executive producer Matthew Weiner, and directed by Scott Hornbacher. The episode originally...

". Gone are the tuxedos and evening gowns in smoke-filled rooms, and the locations have changed as well. Beginning in 2001, the International Clio Festival was held annually in South Beach
South Beach
South Beach, also nicknamed SoBe, is a neighborhood in the city of Miami Beach, Florida, United States. It is the area south of Indian Creek and encompasses roughly the southernmost 23 blocks of the main barrier island that separates the Atlantic Ocean and Biscayne Bay.This area was the first...

, near Miami, Florida
Miami, Florida
Miami is a city located on the Atlantic coast in southeastern Florida and the county seat of Miami-Dade County, the most populous county in Florida and the eighth-most populous county in the United States with a population of 2,500,625...

. The 50th Anniversary CLIO Awards in 2009 were staged in Las Vegas
Las Vegas metropolitan area
The Las Vegas Valley is the heart of the Las Vegas-Paradise, NV MSA also known as the Las Vegas–Paradise–Henderson MSA which includes all of Clark County, Nevada, and is a metropolitan area in the southern part of the U.S. state of Nevada. The Valley is defined by the Las Vegas Valley landform, a ...

. The official press release for the 2010 ceremony stated, "Abandon your office attire and gear up for social after-hours fun...".

The 14" Clio statuette is cast in metal before being plated with gold, silver or bronze. It has a round, stepped base made of black nickel, with an engraved plate containing the recipient's name, agency, year and category. In addition to Gold, Silver and Bronze awards for a specific piece of work, the jury may also award a Grand Clio if one exceptional entry stands above the others in a category.

Each year, a Lifetime Achievement Award is presented to an individual for outstanding contributions to the industry, and a commercial at least five years old is named to the Clio Hall of Fame. Recognition for Network of the Year, Agency of the Year, Production Company of the Year, and Advertiser of the Year are also bestowed.

The statuette for Grand Clio and other special awards is a Gold Clio with a gold-plated base.

In order to be considered for an award, the client or owner of the work must grant permission to be judged; the work must have been developed for a paying client unless pro bono
Pro bono
Pro bono publico is a Latin phrase generally used to describe professional work undertaken voluntarily and without payment or at a reduced fee as a public service. It is common in the legal profession and is increasingly seen in marketing, technology, and strategy consulting firms...

for a non-profit organization; and it must be submitted with a required service charge based on the media category. Entry fees range from $150 for "Student" work to several thousand dollars for an "Integrated Campaign".

Ambassador

A Clio press release on May 8, 2009 announced the CLIO International Ambassadors program to increase awareness of the Clio award outside the U.S. Organizations who represent advertising, communications, design, media and public relations interests in other countries are encouraged to associate with the Clio award and host screening parties or help provide a Clio presence on local social media.

Healthcare

In 2009, a separate CLIO Healthcare Awards extension was created because advertising in the medical industry is different when compared to the ad industry as a whole.

According to the May 12th press release,
"Healthcare accounts for more than one-third of our nation's gross national product and has become one of the most visible sectors of advertising, promotion and creative design in the last few years, particularly on TV and online. We felt it was the right time to create a separate CLIO Awards to acknowledge and account for the fact that healthcare advertising and communications has become critical to the health and well being of the nation and is regulated differently and more stringently than traditional advertising and promotion. The CLIO Healthcare Awards will be executed using the same rigorous standards and commitment to excellence, but levels the playing field to qualify and judge this particular and massive industry sector more fairly and appropriately."

The CLIO Healthcare Awards recognizes the differences between direct-to-professional and direct-to-consumer and covers the key areas of the healthcare industry, including pharmaceuticals, devices & diagnostics, disease awareness, strategic communications, and "other" with an opportunity to submit nominations for print, poster, billboard, direct mail, innovative, interactive, TV/cinema/digital, radio, strategic communications/public relations and integrated campaigns. The "other" category is included due to the unique characteristics of healthcare, and featured over-the-counter and health services in 2009.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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