Media Arts Lab Takes the emmy

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An Emmy in the office about ten minutes ago.

Last year it was a Cannes Grand Prix, this year we won an award that I think trumps that.

Yes, the Emmy is only open to American ads, but they give out around 20 CGPs a year these days, so they’re kind of losing their lustre. And besides, an Emmy is a proper award people outside of the industry have heard of. Big stars and big shows win Emmys, and if you want to win this one you need to make a big ad. Try to sneak round the side by running something at 3am on the US equivalent of Dave +1 and it will have no chance.

I remember one of the times I was working over at BBDO NY for a bit. Phil Dusenberry was showing me and my AD around when we came to Michael Patti’s office. He had a built-in shelving unit that seemed to have been custom made to accommodate the fifteen Gold Lions he’d won, but I was far more impressed with another trophy that stood just to the side of the Cannes metal:

‘Is that an Emmy?’

‘Yes.’

‘Fucking hell. How did you win an Emmy?’

(Stupid question, but I didn’t know they gave Emmys for advertising. Mark Denton will happily tell you they used to give BAFTAs for ads, or at least they did once. I think he won the only one they ever gave out.)

Anyway, I’d go so far as to say the one advertising award I’d like to win above all the others is this one. It’s still rare, and over here it’s massive. The win and speech (yes, you get to make a speech) will be televised nationwide on Sunday. After they won the team went backstage and were congratulated by Morgan Freeman. And then Fortune wrote an article about the whole thing.

Congrats to everyone involved. It couldn’t have happened to a nicer bunch of guys and girls.

Here’s the winning ad (it’s refusing to embed).