CoolBrands UK 2005 – Backslap Party?

My other issue is that there is no transparency about the brands
selection and the brands the judges work at or for. Hmm, telecom
company O2 is in there – and O2’s Head of PR is on the judging panel
too. Oh and the Times is in the book, and two of the judges work at the
Times. Oh – and this is the same for Proud Galleries and Diesel. And
some of the brands feature very heavily in the ads in the magazines
that some of the other editors work for. And didn’t the Naked agency
once produce work on Orange? Should we look at the client list of all
the judges from ad agencies?

OK, ok – you could argue that if you put together some cool people in a
room to choose some cool brands that they’ll choose the cool companies
they work for. But my point here is that we’re in this age of brand
transparency and brand participation and the SuperBrands group has
created a book that fails to reflect this in both the brands they
choose to feature in CoolBrands and the way they make their selection.