• by Richard Whitman , Columnist, January 28, 2019

Major agency award tracker Gunn Report is being re-branded and will be known going forward as the WARC Rankings. WARC acquired the Gunn Report a few years back and was itself acquired by Cannes Lions parent Ascential last year.

The WARC Rankings will tabulate separate indexes for creative, media and effectiveness awards. According to the organization, “The three WARC Rankings will continue to showcase the 100 best creative, effective and innovative media ideas in the world, as well as the top-performing agencies, networks, holding companies, brands, advertisers and countries.”

But now, “further to feedback from the industry,” the listings will be compiled by analyzing the results of key global and regional awards shows “as determined by the industry.”  And those shows will be disclosed in the interests of “transparency and proof of impartiality.”

I’m guessing some agencies got annoyed by Gunn’s methodology that enabled two Omnicom shops—BBDO and OMD—to dominate its indices for a decade. Actually a little more for BBDO  which topped the Gunn Report global index as the most creative agency in the world last year for the 12th year in a row. 

So the industry will now decide the shows that the WARC index analyzes to base its rankings on. Won’t that be an interesting series of clusterf**k gatherings to determine what award shows are in and which are out. I wonder if Cannes will make the cut.

Well it sounds like WARC is bending over backwards to maintain industry support for Gunn’s reason for being. Probably a smart move, not unlike the concessions Cannes Lions made a year or so ago when Adland got tired of the show’s endless expansion and additional fees that went with it. Cannes made changes, cutting back categories and the length of the show.

Yeah, there’s a lot to be said for industry feedback. And heeding it.