Meet Indie Awards Judge Rania Robinson

Last month, The Indie Awards announced its first wave of judges for the 2019 competition. Aiming to raise the profile of the independent agency sector, the awards celebrates the talent and creativity of indie agencies. Here, Indie Awards judge Rania Robinson, CEO of Quiet Storm, discusses the awards show and what trends she expects to see across this year’s entries.

Q> What makes the Indie Awards different?

Rania Robinson> What’s different about the Indie Awards is that it’s exclusively open to independent agencies, which is quite unusual. If you look at most awards, they’re often dominated by the bigger network agencies.

Q> Why do you think the Indie Awards are important?

Rania> I think it’s really important that we can create more of a level playing field in the awards circuit. It can be very challenging for an independent agency to complete against the bigger networked agencies, who have got larger budgets and more work, just by the sheer scale and size of their business. Often the small indies and the work they’re putting out can get overshadowed by the level of investment and support that the big networks are able to put behind their work.

Q> What makes a campaign award-worthy?

Rania> I think for me, I’ll be looking for originality in the winning work. Work that moves you, that connects on a really emotional level; stuff that’s going to stand out, that feels really distinctive and gets you right there.

Q> What themes do you expect to see across the entries?

Rania> I think if Cannes is anything to go by, we’ll be seeing lots of purposeful work, and work that has a strong social context. The use of influencers has been very prominent over the last 12-24 months and innovative use of technology and creativity around technology, as well as interesting uses of new media.

Q> Can great advertising instigate real change in society?

Rania> Yeah absolutely, I think if it comes with authenticity and if the brand is genuine and sincere in their efforts, and it doesn’t feel like a marketing strategy, absolutely. Brands have so much impact on the world and media as a whole in terms of how they influence and affect social opinion and peoples’ perspective; it just needs to be authentic.

Entries close on the 24th September 2019.

To find out more and enter the Indie Awards, click here.