An Interview with Lürzer’s Archive’s Editor-In-Chief
Michael Weinzetti is Editor-In-Chief at one of the industry’s most coveted magazines. We had the pleasure of speaking with him about advertising trends and who in the world is “killing it” right now.
photo by Carioca
Q: Why do you think Archive is one of our industry’s most coveted magazines?
Archive is very popular with advertising creatives because each issue is a quick way of finding out what great advertising – print and film –looks like. Since the work has been selected from hundreds of submissions – about 7% of the work submitted actually makes it into the magazine – it is assured you get to see the very best. Archive Magazine is a time saver. If you go online and look at the various sites that present current ads, you’ll have to wade through masses of inferior or – at best – mediocre work before you find the really good stuff. With Archive, you just get the best, the kind of work you want to see. This is something that has been proven time and again, when at international ad festivals the winners of Lions, Pencils or whatever the trophies are called, for the most part, have been featured in our magazine long before.
Q: So what’s the process to submit an ad to Archive? Does it cost anything?
It’s easy. Log on to our website www.luerzersarchive.com and go to “Submission”; follow the instructions depending whether it’s print work or films. The work you submit must be published, and approved and paid for by a client, which is to say no free or on spec work, is and has always been free of charge. Many years ago we used to run a campaign for creatives to submit their work to our magazine with a headline that summed this up very well: “Show us you’re good for nothing.”
Q: So once it’s submitted, what’s the process of being selected?
Even after almost 30 years at Archive, I still look at every single print submission myself and then decide whether or not to share it with our readers. To do the same with film submission would take too much time, so our editorial staff in Vienna does an informed pre-selection. As for the digital work featured in Archive, we have a guest judge for every issue – usually a well-known Creative Director from some major digital agency, or the head of an ad agency’s digital department. They then provide us with what he or she thinks are the top 15 digital works at the time.
Q: There has been a decline in American submissions. Why is that?
We have not seen any such thing. It is in fact quite the opposite. We get more American submissions than ever, from agencies all over the US and Canada. The US are almost always among the top three nations contributing to the campaigns featured in each issue of the magazine – print as well as film.
Q: What would you say to advertising creatives wanting to get exposure?
Have a look at the work featured in our magazine and then look at your work. Do you think it could be placed among the campaigns featured in Archive magazine and seen by ad creatives, your peers, all over the world without sticking out like a sore thumb? If yes, what are you waiting for? Go to www.luerzersarchive.com and submit whatever you want to show to the world. It’s never been as easy as it is today.
Q: What’s your favourite “print” advertising trend right now?
Nowadays, clients as well as young creatives are crazy about doing digital/interactive work (which I think may be a passing trend but it’s still very notable at the moment.) Campaigns are very rarely print-led anymore. Which often means a smaller budget for print. This again can mean that creatives have to try harder to come up with interesting ideas. They are no longer able to rely only on execution. To that point, they might have to find cheaper ways of executing these ideas than they did perhaps 20 years ago. This has led to a certain preference of using illustrations instead of photography although the advent of digital imaging has also meant that the lines between the two media have been very much blurred.
Q: Which country is killing it right now? (i.e. doing the best work)
South-American countries for sure and not only just Brazil which, of course, has a long and brilliant tradition of print work that goes back more than 30 years. Their way of doing print had a lot to do with the fact that their advertising had to speak to a large illiterate population. This led to more visual-based ads rather than copy-based ones. With the rise of globalisation this became a preferred method of advertising throughout the world. Clients, especially multi-national ones, wanted their ads to appeal to the largest number of people possible and words had a tendency to get in the way of that.
Q: What would you tell the photographers and illustrators who covet this magazine as well?
If you want to share the work you have done for agencies or perhaps clients direct, make sure that they submit their campaigns to Lürzer’s Archive magazine. Or, submit that work yourself after having checked with the ad agency involved. We do need the whole campaign, not just the illustration or photograph you have created for them (i.e. with headline and logo and all that is part of a proper ad). An exception to this is when you submit for our bi-annual “Special Edition” books on Photography, Digital Imaging or Illustration. Then we’re interested in seeing the original work contributed by you to that campaign. Apart from the special issues, you can submit editorial or even self-promotional work. There is always the possibility of taking out paid ad pages in Lürzer’s Archive. If you do that, you’re bound to reach exactly the target you should be aiming at: Creative Directors, Art Directors and Art Buyers. All those “decision makers” are not only keen on seeing their work featured in our magazine but they’re also interested in finding out what’s hot in advertising right now and what the latest trends are.