Sarah McGregor’s The One Show 2024 Diary #2

Sarah McGregor, executive creative director at Dentsu Creative, Melbourne represented Australia on the global jury for Branded Entertainment for The One Show 2024. McGregor, who was in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic where judging took place, writes exclusively for Campaign Brief…

To paraphrase my jury member, Renato Fernandez, we become creatives because we dream of making incredible big ideas, but we stay because of the inspiring, intelligent people we meet along the way. And that summarises this experience perfectly. We’re here for the ideas but the true highlight is listening to and learning from the minds and hearts of the people we meet and judge with.

As the population of the resort spent another day necking cocktails and dancing in the foam party of the main pool, we again descended into the chilly depths of the jury room. Lesson one: Always bring a warm jumper. And maybe some thermals. And probably skip the foam party.

Our job today was to award the coveted merits, pencils and one best of discipline – the juicy bit, if you like. And what a joy it was. Awarding one piece as the best was undoubtedly the hardest job, but the intelligent, respectful arguments, banter and brilliant insights into which that should be were brilliant to witness.

As I pack my bags and prepare for the 30 hour trip home (ouch), here are some top tips for One Show, or any show you happen to be entering:

1/ Spend time with and really understand the category and importantly, the sub-category you’re entering. The judges pay a great deal of attention to this, and getting it right or wrong can make or break a piece of work.

2/ Something we talked about was the power of the ‘wrong’ idea. I’ve always been a big believer in doing this to get out of a creative block, but making a wrong idea into something right can result in the freshness and originality that is so important if you want to stand out. Many ideas were ostensibly the ‘wrong’ idea – they made a kooky argument, they broke the space and the category, they did the impossible, they were unexpected– and that’s what made them special.

3/ Bake your brand into your idea – there’s a difference between simply presenting sponsored entertainment and striving for what is truly branded entertainment – when it came to deciding the best of the best this was an essential factor.

I’ll end on some more wise words from Geoff Edwards, our Jury President “Branded Entertainment engages us and makes us forget that we are judging marketing… it will invite us to watch it over and over again before sharing with others.”

I think we have our definition.