One very good reason to love Advertising Awards.
Advertising Awards – you’ve got to love them haven’t you? Well maybe not. But if you don’t like them or value them, you’re probably in the minority. Creatives like them because they feed their egos. If they’re lucky, they can use them to justify pay rises. They also look good on CVs and help secure moves up the ladder. Plus they get to go on stage and for a nano-second, feel valued, successful and important.
Creative Directors like them because it reflects well on them: one of their main responsibilities is to ensure that the agency produces the best possible creative work. Apart from consumer research/sales figures, the only other yardstick we have for measuring advertising success is awards. So if work wins awards, then that’s validation of their contribution.
Suits like them because it also reflects well on them professionally. ‘I was in charge of the award-winning *Insert Brand account’ certainly sounds more impressive with the addition of the ‘A’ word.
And clients like them because, again, it reflects well on them. More cynical creatives will say that work wins awards despite clients. But without wanting to veer into sycophancy, our experience points to the fact that if you have a healthy client-agency relationship based on mutual trust and respect, then awards are usually forthcoming.
And even if you don’t like awards for any of those reasons, then at the very least, it’s an opportunity to get dressed up and go and drink yourself silly without having to put your hand in your pocket.
But hang on one minute I hear you say. All that may be very well but they count for nothing. They’re irrelevant. What really matters is that work gets results. ROI. Bums on seats. Punters through the door. Advertising should ultimately be measured by the effect it has on the bottom line.
So I present you with the latest research on the subject. We’ve seen similar studies that highlight the link between work that wins awards and work that’s commercially successful. But this latest in-depth report (it analysed work over an 8 year span) concludes that ‘ads that win creative awards are 11 times more efficient at delivering business success than those that don’t.’
It’s certainly grist to the agency mill. Doing work that’s original and different and creative gets results – for everyone involved. Someone once said that the only Advertising that works is either brilliant or terrible. All the stuff inbetween goes in one ear and out the other. But it’s the brave, the interesting and creative work that gets results. Or the stuff that’s remembered for being so atrocious, it’s brilliant (oxymoronic, but true). Which would you rather be associated with?
By the way, did we mention that Chemistry is one of the most highly-awarded agencies in Ireland? Read the article here.