Accenture Song’s Prue Jones on Creative Judging, AI, and the Power of Optimism

When Prue Jones completed her studies in graphic design, she entered the only field she would ever work in; the creative industries. As the studio director and the design and creative director of Accenture Song in Melbourne, Prue has worked at the highest level of Australian advertising.

Today, she is regarded as one of the foremost creative experts in the world, and is a regular contributor to industry award panels including Cannes.

As the studio director and the design and creative director at Accenture Song in Melbourne, Prue has worked at the highest levels of the Australian creative industry. And, this year, Prue is a shortlist judge for the Cannes Lions Festival in the Design category. As a shortlist judge her responsibility is to curate a list of potential winners for the awarding judges. She calls it “sorting the wheat from the chaff.”

“I mean, obviously, the standard is very high,” Prue says. “It's Cannes. There's not a whole lot of chaff.”

And Prue knows a thing or two about judging advertising awards and the voting integrity involved. “I did Spikes last year along with a slew of local awards across Australia, from Perth to Tassie. Up until recently I was a national director on the board of the Australian Graphic Design Association (AGDA), which has its own annual awards as well. well, so I’ve been on the other side too. I’m also currently judging the Good Design Awards, so it’s been a busy time. I love hearing the other judges’ rationales and what they think of the work.

And I love the process; if you're voting very low, the organisation will say, ‘Hey, you're voting way below all the rest of the judges, what’s going on?’ Or conversely, if you're being too generous and voting too high, they will let you know too. It eliminates the possibility that people might influencing outcomes for entries they are connected with – the flags do go up if there is any aberrant voting behaviour.”

It isn’t hard to see why an industry veteran like Prue gets so often trusted with judging for creative awards. Her passion for visual storytelling has been sharpened by 25 years in the industry.

“I started out my career in graphic design and have run the gamut of pretty much every part of the creative industries,” Prue said.

Early in her career, she went from graphic design into advertising, which to her felt like an obvious avenue, having been obsessed with creating art and telling stories from a young age.

“I actually wanted to be a fine artist before I left school. I was accepted into a whole bunch of art colleges and I did that rationalising thing – I love creating art; however, I also need to eat. Design seemed to be a good way to blend an artistic career with a way to support yourself that was more consistent than creating art. So that's what I did.”

Despite what felt like a compromise at first, Prue found that she could flex her creativity in the business world.

“I think most people in this industry have started off with some love of something. I was very keen on drawing and painting, and also quite a prolific creative writer and won a number of awards throughout my formative years for writing things.”

To Prue, the ideas make the campaign, not the other way around.

“I have always been drawn towards the conceptual. Visual design, especially in the early days, was very much concerned with how things looked. In my mind, advertising seemed to be able to unite things that looked beautiful or were impactful, but at the same time had a concrete idea behind them that moved people to take action. I really enjoy that part of creativity.”

“Part of selling design is selling a creative vision and often a whole number of people's collective creative vision.”

And Prue remains optimistic about collaborative creative visions, even in the age of AI.

“I don't feel like chat GPT and generative AI like Mid-journey or image creation platforms are going to replace creative humans, but I do feel like they're a fantastic copilot,” Prue said. “If you think about how ideas are usually conceived, often it's the mash-up of two seemingly disparate ideas coming together that form something new. Generative AI is fantastic for helping you with that process.”

As far as Prue sees it, AI is just another tool or collaborator for artists and creatives to work with in the process of iteration.

“Every creative’s nemesis is the white, blank sheet of paper. The paralysis of not knowing where to start. AI can overcome that phase quickly and then allow for human creativity and ingenuity to come through.”

It’s an optimistic take on AI’s place in the industry. But then, Prue is an optimistic person - never one to let the destination get in the way of a good journey.

Taking a moment to reflect, Prue recalls finding fulfilment even in the most unexpected outcomes.

“I did a big digital campaign in the earlier days of the internet for a luxury car brand with distinct ad placements. We created this full-page takeover for MSN which sent so much traffic to the client’s server it crashed, which the client was less than happy about. On the other hand, I was ecstatic, that was a lot of clicks.

The memory puts a smile on her face.

“I'll always remember that one.”