How is Subservient Chicken the best piece of digital work in the last decade? 

The One Club’s best of the decade list is out. I was lucky enough to be asked to vote on it. It’s a wonderful testament to how much life has changed in the last 10 years and how many amazing creative people work in the industry. So yay for that.

But the list is so annoying.

I’ll be honest and say that Subservient Chicken wasn’t even on my ten. Now I know this may rub some people up the wrong way, I’m friends with the Barbarians and the Crispins. They both do great work. But for me this is not even their best. It was a project that got lucky. It’s definitely fun, experimental, simple (all the things I like about digital work) and boy did Crispin make the most of it (that is their genius) but the best we as an industry can do? No, no, no.

Even within Burger King, Whopper Sacrifice is the better idea. It was the first great use of Facebook. The only other interesting use of FB - so far - being the IKEA photo tag work. It makes people actually want the product. Just think, a stupid friend or whopper, a friend or a whopper? Hmm….I’m hungry. Subservient chicken did not do that. If anything I wouldn’t be surprised if SC truned people off. The big thing about SC was of course the ‘viral’ aspect. That is what people remember. I don’t know what the numbers are now but at the time more people had played with the Lynx (axe) girl on the bed that Dare did than Subservient Chicken. Facebook had to shut Whopper Sacrifice down. Now that’s viral.

The nature of lists is tough. People go for the obvious stuff. Crispin played out Subservient Chicken brilliantly. They turned it into a TV and PR campaign. That was what made it front of mind. That is definitely something we can all learn from. But as a stand alone digital piece I’m not sure I would want future creatives to think it’s the pinnacle.

Also, it was sad not to see any banners on the list. I get why, they are not as sexy, but for the record I would have put in the Nike banners from Double You, The Gym banners with the big cursor icon from Brazil and the Uniqlo Lucky Switch banners - which I think is a better advertising idea - remember we are supposed to sell shit - than Uniqlock.

But anyways different strokes for different folks.

UPDATE: here’s my best ten