Lately (and far too late, in my tiny opinion), The One Show et al have been making all kinds of rules and pronouncements about scam ads, those nice but naughty little creative efforts produced solely for the purpose of winning awards.

And while it’s good to see the shows finally doing something about those ads that meet entry requirements only in the strictest sense (e.g. ran once in the classifieds section of a Pittsburgh Chinese-language newspaper), I doubt they will find these new rules easy to enforce.

Some perfectly legitimate ads are intended to run only once. Some perfectly legitimate ads have all the hallmarks of a scam ad — videos produced specifically for YouTube, fr’instance.

So how does one tell what is legit and what is not?

One can’t.

And neither can One Show.

At least not without spending hours roto-rooterly examining each of the thousands of entries each show receives.

So here’s an idea.

Shows already categorize entries by medium.

Why not also categorize by media spend?

Simply require “proof of media purchase” with each entry.

Not only will such a requirement separate the sugar from the artificial sweetener, it will confer greater honor on winning creative with a large media buy – ‘cause everybody knows the bigger the spend, the bigger the client’s microscope.

And the scam ads?

There will still be a place for them (and their precious entry fees) in the teeny-tiny media spend category.

And it is there that their considerable creative (if not moral) qualities can continue to inspire without making anyone a liar.

(Sorry. Gratuitous rhyming. My bad.)

- Craig Cooper