By Jeromy Lloyd, September 15 2009

Some of the country's top advertising minds have just returned from the annual ICE Awards judging weekend, held for the first time in St. John's.

"It's an Atlantic Candian show, but I think a lot of people look at it as a Halifax show," said Brad Dykema, creative director at Trampoline Branding in Halifax, and ICE Awards co-chair. "The biggest part of the industry is [in Halifax], but there's enough going on outside Halifax that it should be broadened. I don't think the region felt ownership over the show before."

To help expand the show's presence beyond Nova Scotia, Trampoline partnered with St. John's-based Target Marketing to manage the judging weekend.

Jenny Smith, creative group head at Target, was made co-chair, judging for the event.

The judging panel, led by Angus Tucker, co-creative director at Toronto's John St., included:

• Caroline Kolompar, marketing manager at Herbal Magic in Toronto

• Paul Little, creative director, TBWA Vancouver

• Nathan Monteith, art director at Taxi Toronto

• Steve Persico, copywriter, Leo Burnett Toronto

• Denise Rossetto, associate creative director, DDB Toronto.

Before vanishing into their judging rooms to assess the region's best television, radio, online, print, design work, the judges met with 85 of the city's marketing professionals at a breakfast panel discussion on Sept. 11. The event was organized jointly by Target and Spark, a St. John's startup agency.

"There's a lot of angst around award shows," said Tucker in his introdution. "Award shows deserve to be debated a bit. They are important, certainly to us in the advertising business, but they are important to clients as well. And the time they're important to client is when they're unhappy with the agency they have."

When it comes time to look around the industry for other options, he said, awards can serve as an indicator of high-calibre talent.

The discussion ranged from DDB Brazil's infamous "fake" September 11-themed ads for the World Wildlife Fund to the often touchy subject of testing creative work.

"In Toronto, we get the huge clients who are going to test the crap out of everything," Persico said, whereas smaller clients tend not to test. "One of the advantages of being in a smaller market is getting clients where you're selling directly to the owner. He goes by gut. He doesn't have money to test things. He wants to do somethiing a little bit different. He takes pride in his brand."

DDB's Rossetto added that she would prefer to see testing done before the creative process starts to find out more about the market and a client's target.

"It would help me write," she said. "The more I know about my target, the more I can get in their minds and get to them. I'd rather that than ‘I don't like that guy's hair and his shirt's not right.' That's just subjective."

Following the discussion, judges were sequestered for the better part of two days to review award submissions.

With the lineup now finalized, Trampoline takes over the remaining ICE Awards tasks-primarily the organizing of the awards gala on Oct. 28 in Halifax.