If you work in the creative field in Australia right now, there's a strong chance you're feeling suitably smug. And deservedly so.
Late last week, The Drum announced the best countries for creativity in 2018. The rankings were based on the number of awards received by each country throughout the year - including D&AD, Cannes Lions, the Clios and The Drum Awards (among others).
The research examined 3,607 pieces of work created by 1,721 agencies, 647 chief creative officers, 841 executive creative directors and 2,543 creative directors.
According to 'The Big Won' rankings, Australia were ranked an incredible FOURTH - behind The United States, United Kingdom and Germany. Rounding out the top 10 were Canada, Japan, France, Brazil, Thailand and South Africa.
To understand just how enormous an achievement this is for our creative friends here in Australia, we should pause for a moment to reflect on the opportunity vs reward and recognition conversion.
If you look purely at our population, vs each country on this list, our creativity per head of capita is quite extraordinary. Our humble head count of 25 million is tiny in comparison to the US (x13 times larger), the UK (over double), France (over double) and Germany (over three times our size). Canada has circa 12 million more people and Japan has a whopping 5+ times our population.
Search google and you'll find some rubbery but probably not entirely inaccurate data pointing to the United States employing around 189,000 people in creative agencies across the country. In Australia? Just under 17,000. That's just 9% of the total number of people employed in creative agencies across America. And yet, we ranked just three places down from the most awarded country in the world.
What does all of this mean? It means that we have fewer opportunities to deliver creative excellence and yet, we have a stronger conversion than any other country in the top 8. Yet again, we find ourselves punching well above our weight as a nation.
And if that's not enough to convince you, I'll leave you with the following from BWM Dentsu, which was one of the most awarded campaigns in 2018.
In April 2018, BWM Dentsu and its PR arm, Haystac, launched "Project Revoice" with the ALS Association in the US and MND Australia. The piece is empathetic, compelling and raw. You'll want some tissues on hand for this one: https://www.thedrum.com/creative-works/project/dentsu-project-revoice-als-association
Creative directors, copywriters, designers, producers and editors of Australia: I always knew you were a special bunch, and now it's been confirmed on the world stage. I salute you.
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