Awards Season Predictions - John Maxham

As Chief Creative Officer of DDB Chicago, John Maxham oversees the agency’s creative talent and creative work for clients such as State Farm, Capital One, Mars/Wrigley, Jeep, and Kohler.

Here, Maxham shares his thoughts on the upcoming awards season, and what he thinks will be taking home the trophies in 2017.

This year, I may head to the One Show and London International. And I’m definitely planning to head to Cannes this year. We always send people from DDB because it remains a great place to learn, find inspiration, and meet collaborators for future projects. As the festival has grown, everything has gotten more challenging – from booking accommodations to justifying the expense of sending all the people who could benefit. But I firmly believe that sending emerging talent to Cannes is crucial to their development. The first time I attended, it forever changed the way I thought about the possibilities of our industry.

As far as Grand Prix winners go, I’m throwing in my bet with Fearless Girl. This effort by McCann for State Street Global Advisors placed a statue of an intrepid little girl across from the famous Charging Bull statue on Wall Street. What it created was essentially a face-off on the most famous street in America. The stunt was synced to International Women’s Day and was meant to draw attention to the underrepresentation of women in corporate leadership. The physical execution matches the flawlessness of the timing. Rather than appearing as a quick and dirty guerrilla stunt, the bronze cast of the girl matches the quality of the bull, making her appear a worthy adversary.

In addition to generating the buzz and conversation that you’d expect from such a jarring addition to the streetscape, Fearless Girl garnered another response: displeasure from the creator of Charging Bull, sculptor Arturo Di Modica. Apparently Di Modica was not pleased with having the work he created in 1989 portrayed as the embodiment of male oppression. He stated that his intent was to create a symbol of hope and resilience following the stock market crash of 1987. But the additional controversy simply made the stunt that much more compelling in my opinion. It’s hard to deny that the reason that Fearless Girl works so well is because it plays off a fairly banal and well-understood symbol and creates a far more interesting conversation.