We’re not saying the award industry’s rife with behind-the-curtain bribes, but it does occasionally happen. Creatives sitting on a jury judging creative agency work (sometimes their own) — of course there’s going to be a little vote-rigging.

But when you have a jury panel wholly comprised of journalists, like the Epica Awards, there’s a little more cred in their ability to refrain from back-scratching and ego-boosting requests. Don’t get us wrong, not all journalists are squeaky clean, but impartiality has been bred in them since the day they enrolled in J-school, so the bribe-caving odds of little lower.

That’s the focus behind the Epica Awards’ new print and online campaign by Paris agency Altmann+Pacreau. It emphasises the objective nature of the journalist competition by showing famous creatives on juries for other awards receiving prying, vote-swaying texts (disguised as cheerful and friendly) from other creatives in the industry.

“No-one in the room is involved in the work or needs to promote their own agency,” said  Altmann+Pacreau co-founder Olivier Altmann. “When you serve on a jury you receive lots of ‘friendly’ messages, trying to find out what’s going on and putting a gentle pressure on your judgement. So we built on this insight to promote Epica, one of the few worldwide awards that most agencies support specifically because of its singularity.”