D&AD and The One Club, the two organisations behind The Pencil Awards, have announced a joint initiative aimed at identifying the leaders in creativity internationally.
The Pencil Rankings, www.pencilrankings.org, will allocate points based on the results from The One Show and the D&AD Awards alone. Launching early next year, the newly-created Pencil Rankings will measures performance in these two shows alone: awards achieved in each environment accrue a defined number of points, which are then totaled to provide an index of performance across both. The Pencil Rankings will measure both individual advertising and design agencies as well as networks on their overall performance in the two shows. There will also be a Client of the Year title.
The Pencil Rankings is searchable, so that agencies and clients can see either overall performance, or performance within a defined subset, such as region or agency type. The information provided will be free, and may be used by any agency or client without charge for agencies to use internally and in their client-facing marketing programs.
D&AD chief executive officer Tim O’Kennedy said, “There are many awards shows around, but the two most demanding, most rigorous and most coveted in the creative world are The One Show and D&AD. We thought it was time to offer our clients – and their clients – a simple and utterly transparent barometer of their creative performance in this, the Superleague of shows.”
The One Club chief executive officer Mary Warlick said, “The One Show and D&AD are similar in the sense that both organisations are resolutely not-for-profit, and absolutely dedicated to the creative community, at all career stages. The Pencil Rankings are an expression of our solidarity, and we are very proud and excited to be able to give something back to our clients in this way.”
The One Club president Kevin Swanepoel added, “This undiluted worldwide ranking from the top two creative awards programs, will be an invaluable resource to agencies, clients and creatives alike."
The organisations expect to go live with an online platform early next year.