This year, the Kiev International Advertising Festival introduces advertising craft contests, which will assess not only the creative idea of advertising itself but the quality of its execution. The craft contest will also help in the formation of first Ukrainian production studios rating, which is also very significant for the domestic advertising industry. Sostav.ua talked about the need for such evaluation, the importance and features of the competition with the owner and manager of Kinograf agency, member of the Craft jury at the 11-th KIAF Vitaliy Kokoshko.

Vitaliy, as a winner and a member of the jury of various advertising festivals, what do you think of the new nominations within KIAF, in particular about the advertising craft contests?
Comprehensive assessment of advertising excellence, id est. Craft, still did not exist in the frames of post soviet, but in principle and in Europe, open space (Russian contest "25kadr" I do not take into account due to a kind of format and judging). The founder of craft or excellence assessment in advertising is an American festival AICP Show, which assesses the advertising inside the profession. The focus in this competition is put not to creative, but to execution, or some aspects of creativity: art direction, copyright and so on.
Now, starting from this year, Craft contest also exist within the Cannes Advertising Festival. So, it's very nice that the contest is also introduced by our native Kiev International Advertising Festival. For our market it is a very important event.

What is the definite importance of this news for our market?

Assessment of advertising craft - is what really the market is missing. Why such contest within the festival of advertising is needed? Because earlier, when the festivals were estimating only creative, a very large part of the advertising market has been deprived of attention. That is, a copywriter or a particular art director, producer, editor or composer remained almost always in the shadows. And these people are very important for the industry. The same can be applied to prints, when previously submitted to the festival work were evaluated only from the complex point of view - just the whole poster or print as it is. Now in the competition Press Craft we can see who is more influencing the viability and success of this project - art director, copywriter, illustrator, etc. The competition has a lot of different nominations, due to which the works can be reviewed and evaluated.

So, Craft is needed to unshadow concrete names?

That is one of the aspects. The competition is also needed for many members of the advertising market to feel their weight. And, of course, to make possible definite ranking in the market of performers, confirmed with the nominations and awards of significant festival.
Advertising has always divided into two large sections: what and how. Often, advertising agencies come up with "what", but with the "how" to do this, they move on to the contractors in the production and post-production studios. And very much in advertising depends on the contractor, or else from a specific person: the concrete producer, director, operator, actor, editor, composer, and so on. Advertising craft contests are established, in principle, to give these people and production studios chance to show themselves to the whole market.
In this competition in general everything is built on the other vertical than in the creative categories. In the creative competition an advertising agency always wins, and then the laurels are further divided to specific personalities: creative director, art director, copywriter. In craft nomination whole vertical value is based on the person, on a professional who has personally influenced the success of a product. Specific performers should submit works to the Craft contest first of all. Then - post-production, production and only then the agency and client.

Why, if the advertising craft contest is so important to the industry, it was not introduced earlier?
For everything there is its own time. Regarding the advertising craft, Ukraine keeps up with the same Cannes Film Festival. In principle, the idea of assessing the level of execution of works, that is, advertising craft, has been for a long time around and was discussed in an advertising medium. Many advertising agencies are downloading AICP Show winners from the Internet, although, in general, this festival is little known in Ukraine. Nevertheless, the structure of its approach to advertising is very interesting and original.