Arnold Worldwide CCO Pete Favat

In his second dispatch from New Orleans, our man inside the ANDY Awards jury room, Arnold Worldwide chief creative officer Pete Favat, dishes the dirt on hotly-debated ads for man pads and, er, lawn mowers.

Day Two started out with all the judges in one giant room. Twenty-four brilliant people in one place at 9am sharp — judging begins. We have nine hours of video entries ahead of us. Today is the day it gets better though, right? The first level of screening is done. Mother, London founder Mark Waites takes a chair next to me. The videos start to rip.

OK, today is better. A Canal+ spot comes on. A guy falls victim to an unfortunate journey and ends up nailed in a box. I won’t tell you the rest. Watch it if you haven’t already. I love it. “Shiny Suds”, a funny twisted spot from Method, has judges talking.

TEENAGE BOY HAS “HIS FRIEND” COMING TO VISIT — “Zack” is a content piece from Tampax in which a teenage boy discovers one morning he now has “girl parts down there” and gets his period in his high school class. When you describe this idea, it sounds terrible. The execution though is so great. Great storytelling. The tone is cool. Music is right. Casting is pretty perfect. A couple of judges want to know who directed it. “What did pioneer women do?” Zack asks himself as he rolls up a shitload of toilet paper into a ball, while hiding in the boys bathroom stall trying to engineer a “man pad.” One female judge does not agree with me on this film. She thinks it’s, well, stupid. We get in each other’s grill about it. And hash through our differences.

I see it this way: female periods have been whispers among girls and moms since, well, forever. Boys know that girls have periods but never ever want to talk about it. Maybe because boys don’t know enough about how to address it? Maybe it’s way too embarrassing? Maybe it’s none of our fucking business? I don’t know. This film works because it normalizes what has always been a sensitive “we don’t talk about that with boys” subject. At the same time, as a boy, you watch and say, ‘Oh, that’s what girls have to go through… I think I understand it better now.’ One thing to note is this, and it’s official: I have never spent this much time talking or writing about periods and/or tampons. Way to go Tampax and the folks who made this film.

Mission accomplished.

ANDYs jurors review and debate cutting-edge feminine hygiene ads.

“WOMEN MOW THE LAWN?” — There’s a spot playing now with all these women singing a tune about “mowing the lawn” and “trimming the bushes.” That’s weird. I rarely ever see women dressed up in wild colors singing, mowing the lawn and trimming bushes where I live. On TV that subject is reserved for the beer category or some hardware store or a Family Guy episode. Are these women selling beer? Are they selling mowers? Is this some sort of sweet gesture to give their man a break from the yard duties? Why are they all trimming these bushes into slit shapes now? There goes a heart shaped one. And what’s that she’s doing? Wait, one woman is wrapping her legs around a little bush she just clipped. What the hell is going on? It’s getting weirder and weirder. Oh, there’s the logo. SCHICK RAZORS ??? Oh shit.

OK, I was wrong about what I said yesterday about Prius winning for most entered work. HBO crushed it. Entering shows is tough. If an agency has good stuff, they want it in a lot of categories. You would think it may “up” the chance of winning. But on this end, judges get so tired of seeing the same piece over and over again. So I’m not sure if that theory works. We’ll see.

ANDYs jurors Jose Molla, Mark Tutssel and Nick Law share a not-so candid moment.

We have a quick break, then we move off video to judge student print. But before we do, it’s time for coffee. Clowning around with la communidad co-founder/ECD Jose Molla, Leo Burnett Worldwide CCO Mark Tutssel and R/GA EVP/CCO Nick Law. (Larry , Mo and Curley.) I took this shot to capture the moment. I also got to see Nick Law’s brand new baby boy. Nick is one proud dad. One of the more beautiful pieces of creative today. Nick wins the “Best Work in Nine Pounds and Under” category.

The student work is pretty good. A couple of stand-out pieces. But this is the first round. We have to whittle it down later today.

At lunch I found an empty seat at one of the tables and caught the middle of a conversation being lead by Mimi Cook, Apple’s Creative Director. She was wide-eyed and excited about something she saw in her judging room yesterday. As she went on I realized, she was talking about our (Arnold’s) new Truth campaign “Do you have what it takes to be a tobacco executive?” She seemed to really dig it. I felt so proud, maybe not as proud as Nick, but proud all the same.

Back to screening. Evian “dancing babies” is a great way to get the afternoon going again. The beat goes on.

Way better work today. Looking forward to tomorrow already.

Pete