Let’s organise a boycott of advertising awards
I was reading Dave Trott’s blog today.
It’s an excellent post on one of the ways in which awards have become devalued, making them more about congratulation than stimulation.
I’ve lamented the current awards scene here, here, here, here, here, here, here etc.
And it seems obvious to me that the whole shooting match is fucked.
They don’t help creatives, they’ve done nothing to improve the recent standard of the work and they have a fraction of the respect they used to have.
But they keep going, high on the oxygen of cash and pointless circle-jerkification that means nothing and adds nothing to the industry as a whole.
So I think we need to take action.
This blog is intended to test the general opinion of what a boycott might achieve, and indeed what you would like it to achieve.
Please leave your thoughts in the comments section and we’ll work out what to do from there.
Thanks in advance.
It might stop all Creatives, irrespective of talent, thinking they are Jesus spunk. I’m in.
I think you should contact all your industry ‘mates’, Ben and ask them if they are up for some tossing
‚Ķof pre-won awards. Hire a skip and get it round to all the agencies. Perhaps some t’s could be printed up. ‘I’m an advertising tosser’.
The Gunn Report has started to affect share price. So now the big corporations who previously thought awards were a luxury see it as something to chase. So they hire people who’ve won loads of international awards (mostly with scam) and they give them a remit to win awards by any means necessary. But these scam artists only know the sort of thing that wins awards, but don’t know how to do great advertising on big clients with tricky briefs. So the work in general gets worse, whilst the lead up to awards deadlines sees a sudden spike in award winning work. Work that doesn’t contain strategy or insight or understanding. I was in a meeting the other day and someone said ‘strategy is dead’. This is not the industry I wanted to get into 10 years ago.
so many comments already? either not approved yet or this shows how no one is really up for a challenge?
just some thoughts, as obvious as they might be… this needs a mission statement, preferably on a website so everyone who wants to participate can include a link or quote on their website/portfolio etc…
to get that written:
why do people/agencies actually hand their work in? what are the benefits?
what are the things that are wrong with awards?
im sure there are more questions that need to be answered…
We need awards. We need something to aim for and to aspire to. So I don’t think we should boycott all awards. Just most of them. That’s the problem. Addy’s, Andy’s, Arrows, Clio’s, Creative Circle, D&AD, Cannes – and so many more. There should be one industry recognised awards scheme worldwide and that’s it. It should be a none profit organisation. And it should have strict rules against scam. That would be an award that would be seriously hard to win. And therefore worth winning.
Good idea.
I’m up for it. Would give me an excuse for not having picked up many. “No, no, no Trev, thing is, y’see, I didn’t want to win.”
We have to do the work to get paid.
And then agencies enter that work.
So there really is no way of boycotting… apart from maybe asking to have your name removed from the entry and not going to that really shit awards do…
Why not set up our own awards?
Entries are submitted to a site for free then those with verified agency email addresses get to vote.
One vote per IP/Email address.
Therefore the winner has been chosen by the majority.
okay, why… competitive advantage for agencies, creatives. new business. awards show credibility. awards are proof you are worth the money, part of your brand… award shows… conference, party, networking events.
whats wrong with this?
I like Dickhead’s idea, however, I think people respected D&AD before because it was voted on by people I respected.
It isn’t these days, of course, but that wouldn’t be solved by letting any old geezer vote.
And Mary, awards aren’t proof of anything other than you entered an awards show and some people voted for your ad.
I’ve been on juries and seen things win and lose for really fucking stupid reasons that have nothing to do with the overall quality of the ad.
It doesn’t matter that the pre-won award was judged by a ‘credible’ or not. The act of tossing an award away is a potentially highly visual symbolic gesture that one isn’t happy with the award system anymore. It’s called having some skin in the game. ‘I’m proud to be tosser’ t-shirts can be bought via Nabs.
Agencies used to boycott the crappier awards like Creative Circle, Eurobest, etc, and just aim for One Show, D&AD and Cannes (The Clios went bust not so many years ago). But along came Donald Gunn, bringing the fear that the Golden Turds might be worth some points. I’m all for a boycott as I have squillions of awards. The thing is, awards get you pay rises, bigger offices and the odd look from the hot receptionist who has blanked you for 3 years. And the Grosvenor House is a great place to catch up with old mates (who, hopefully, have won fuck all that night), bitch, gossip and take Class A’s awash with horse drugs, paracetamol and Draino. It’s a quandry Ben.
Thanks, Rory.
I think that some of those benefits still exist (maybe the hot receptionist just got her boss-eye fixed with a bit of laser surgery), but much less so than they used to.
And I’m sure we could all catch up and bitch elsewhere (where’s Scamp’s blog when you need it?).
At every awards show, have a humiliation award. A razzie. An award in which the winner is none the wiser, they go up to collect their trophy, and at the last minute the award is switched for a giant bronze penis, and they have to pick it up and stand at the front holding this enormous phallus while the watching audience laugh in their sad little faces. Reckon that would sort a few people out. It would certainly act as some kind of deterrent.
Like I said Rory,
Sometimes to bring about a change you’ve got to have some skin in the game. C’mon everybody surely there’s loads of you who want to let the ad world know that you are a tosser.
John W…
I did get rid of my awards. My son kept a grand clio that he likes because it is all gold and looks like an Oscar. And I kept the pencils, but the rest have gone. And I feel… well, nothing really. It was just practical.
It would be hard to tell the young teams around us that ‘we’re not doing the awards thing’, when they are just starting out. No matter how devalued the whole thing might be.
I wonder how they feel about the boycott at St Lukes? (Weren’t even in the rag’s ‘School Report’ from what I recall. Are they still going?)
Is the point that there are ads out there that should wins awards and don’t? Or there are agencies out there that should win awards and don’t?
In which case the measurement of ‘quality’ would be the issue. So a change of measurement could be used.
How do you get a fair judgment of quality? Quality of an ad and quality of an agency?
–
Reading Campaign’s School Report this week was interesting to me. Firstly no clear criteria although each had a write up on the why’s of their score. I still wonder why billings matter as much as say revenue or good forbid some measure of profitability but hey.
The interesting thing for me this year was how agencies scored themselves compared to Campaign. Who is at fault here Campaign or the agencies? Thoughts?
On average (I am doing the full stats this week) agencies over score themselves and they dramatically over score when Campaign scores them 5 and under. Only 24 out of 84 agreed with their score. And only 2 underscored themselves, Mother by 0.5 and Adam and Eve by 1 – both were scored 9 by the magazine the other 9’s AQKA, Ogilvy One and PHD (despite last month‚Äôs viral) agreed with its score of 9.
–
Would all agencies agree to have their score card digitally stapled to their website? No of course not and why should they.
–
Agencies continually put themselves up for judgment which by the looks of it this year may lead to a few bruised egos – luckily few clients read Campaign.
@Ben
But that respect has gone now, because the people you respect(ed) are making constant fuck ups.
Awarding scams or ideas that have been done before.
An award judged by a majority of peers is more meaningful. Especially if there was a ‘this is a scam’ or ‘seen this before’ button.
More of a Year Zero thing, Rory, to start again I’m thinking a big symbolic tossing act might get the attention to bring about change‚Ķ oh and sell some t-shirts for charity into the bargain.
We cold even make an ad – called ‘join the anti ads revolution’. If we are lucky we may win an award.
There should be one effectiveness award for clients and one that only the public votes on. After all they are the ones that are going to watch/look at/interact with them. And they couldn’t give a toss about craft or sound or any of that garbage that we high five ourselves with.
I’ve tried to organise this kind of thing before and I can tell you right now what would happen.
Everyone would agree to boycott the awards, and then they’d all stab each other in the back and enter anyway, thinking they’d successfully eliminated all their rivals. You might actually end up with MORE award entries overall.
The thing is, Ben, most of us love a pat on the head and a gold star, and much as we know awards are a total sham, we still dream of having a piece of gold-coloured metal with our names on.
ANon 21. Efectiveness awards are even more depressing than award awards. The place where Go Compare would win gold and then that would be the thing every client would ask for.
You guys have to change the way you look at ad awards. It’s not anymore awarding the best work of the year, but the most weird/breakthrough/different execution on the market. Whatever, it ran or not. More like a fashion show, setting tendencies to those small agencies on how to do their ads. It makes sense somehow. Or this is just me lying to myself as I try to get some more zero on my paycheck. Cheerio, Benja.
k, i think the problem is someting like this: awards are what the agency / creatives / the work gets judged by. part of the brand. so, just saying no, and not participating, why would someone who wins the one or other odd award do that? especially since others still enter and… see first sentence. it would leave a bloody fucking gap. so go and fill it with something. the anti-award network, celebrating work that helps the client, the peer review online blah… dunno. point is, if you do not enter, you need a fucking reason that can appear somewhwere or youll have a perceived disadvantage… well, its all become a scam-/wankfest. thus the value of awards going down in perception… what do you want? no awards? better judging? needs clear metrics. is that possible? i say fuck awards. there are enough reasons to have a party. but thats just me. cheers!
I used to work at an agency who’s policy it was to never enter awards. They’re very open about it – it’s on the first page of their website (you were close when you said St Lukes).
I could see why they did it – clients don’t care less about awards, and for the agency it means big entry fees and the loss of creatives to other agencies.
But despite the evangelistic anti-awards fervour I felt it wasn’t a positive thing for the people who actually worked there. The anti-awards sentiment soon turned into an anti-anything-creative sentiment. Plus I couldn’t help but feel that staying there too long would be very detrimental to getting a job elsewhere because you’d have no metal to show for your endeavours when you left.
So, although I totally agree that awards are the emperor’s new clothes, they’re also a necessary evil if you’re trying to build a career and think about the next place you work.
Why don’t we try and get this blog-post into the One Show/Cannes/D&AD annuals. Could be a funny way to carry out Mary’s above idea.
Holly: I’m not sure I thought this would actually happen; just trying to start the debate.
I doubt any CD would really want awards to end. After all, that’s their currency with agency management. They all think it’s very important because nothing else acts as a measurable way of how well they do their job.
And St Luke’s person, if everyone boycotted awards it would work because no one would value them and we’d use another measure.
And St Luke’s never won any awards because the vast majority of its work was and is shit. One year they got Ikea in The Book because the production company entered it. I assume this happened on other occasions, but no one liked the ads.
Because they were shit.
i like dickhead’s idea. the value of the d&ad was its almost snobbish and masochistic mercilessness. bring that back. fuck profits.
the problem here is that it’s the big agency networks who learned the PR value of winning awards.
They do the most work.
They have the most work to enter.
They have the most money to enter more.
The awards schemes know it.
That’s whey you see the same big agency heads on all the juries.
And guess who wins all the awards?
When you’ve got American P&G clients going to Cannes, something has shifted in the force.
Some awards are more valid than others but the real point is the fact that what advertising seems to be all about nowadays is chasing awards.
To much cart before the horse going on. What needs to happen is a reappraisal of the system. Awards per se aren’t the problem. The tossing of an award or two by some industry bigwig or smallwig for that matter might just make some people sit up and take notice and question their very being. Are you into advertising or are you just in advertising? http://bit.ly/eqVC9f
Interestingly, Ben, Steve Henry takes a different view to your last comment, he says awards ‘right now feel like a weapon for management to use against increasingly beleaguered creative directors’.
http://community.brandrepublic.com/blogs/stevehenry/archive/2011/03/21/they-ve-given-it-a-bronze.aspx
A thought from me: a couple of years down the line, nobody remembers who or what won the Grand Prix. But they do remember the outstanding work.
For comparison, can you remember which of these got the ‘best film’ oscar for 2010?
– Avatar
– The Hurt Locker
– Up
– Precious
– Crazy Heart
they would of course have to be called the “dickhead” awards.
Form a union and lets all go on strike…that would teach the fuckers!…sorry i meant planners…and crap account whatevers…and shit ECD’s who’ve never done anything…they know who they are…and lousy management line-ups…who’ve only got their jobs because their best mate owns the agency…
‘Masturbation or stimulation’
This was a headline for the AWARD show poster a few years back.
I think that most people have forgotten why awards were created in the first place.
Like the Academy Awards, they were created to reward individuals for their craft and to raise standards.
We need to go back to basics and educate advertising agencies and their clients about the relevance of awards.
There is a business argument for creativity in advertising that needs to be articulated.
Most awards are now run just to make money.
I like the idea of taking the profit motive out of awards and making them an online competition run by ad people, not business people.
Everything else has gone digital, why not awards?
Of course there wouldn’t be the expensive dinner and awards ceremony to go to but that was for the wankers anyway.
It wasn’t St Lukes – but everything you say about their work could equally be applied to this place! Cheers
I have to agree with anon 10:25. I too had the chance to work in a no-awards-policy type agency (it was st luke’s but there are not many of those around so not too difficult to guess).
Before I joined the agency, I had this impression that that place is like a utopia of adland. Doing funny work and bleedingly creative. And I know a lot of people having the same thoughts about them.
Then when I went it, I just feel that the work they did (during my time) was a bit average and quite formulaic. It seemed like they applied the same answer to every brief. Which works to a degree but not something I would be proud of.
I guess it’s all good that you are anti-awards but do great work which REALLY will be making a stand. If you do average/shit work and said you don’t do awards it’s almost like saying ‘it’s not about winning…’
I don’t know. I think there’s a reason why a really good, but anti-awards agency don’t exist. It’s that competitiveness, that piss-off feeling when I see my mates do a good ad, that drives me.
and ben, I agree boycotting will make a great statement but it can’t be a blanket boycott.
Don’t know if this will help but maybe it’s a ‘rotational’ thing.. this year everyone goes for the D&AD, next year Creative Circle… quite funny when someone goes “Oh you won a black pencil that year? that doesn’t count. no one was in it…”
Neil,
Ah, the flipside of my point. I guess CDs needing awards to prove their worth to management is about one millimetre away from agency management using awards to beat CDs up (not at W&K, of course).
And it was Hurt Locker, but I only know that because I despair that it was not Avatar.
And Inception should have won this year.
….so, creatives have lost their seats at the top table.
They’ve lost their status, the value of their opinions, their handsome salaries, their company cars, their offices, their flexible lunch breaks etc etc.
Now you’re suggesting they give up awards……interesting.
Hmmm… good point.
Funny that it took 38 comments for someone to say that.
I guess too much talking is a bit like tossing.
A complete waste of time if nothing is gonna come of it.
Talk the talk but now it’s time to walk the walk.
Mark
Yes, sod it all. Year Zero!
We shouldn’t lose the awards, just get rid of the ones we have and install some believe and values back into the theory with a new scheme or way of judging.
No entry fee.
No judging panel.
No £50 book.
No overly expensive awards night.
No FUCKING D&AD.
Sorry the last bit went off subject
St Luke’s wouldn’t enter awards.
David Buonathingy said if you want to enter awards then pay for it yourself and if you win we will give you double back.
A bit twatty I guess but it made you think harder about what you entered as it was your own cash. If everyone did that then at least the awards shows wouldn’t make as much
“A principle is not a principle until it costs you something.” Bill Bernbach. #tosstheawardsandstartagain
Just boycotting awards is a bit first base isn’t it?
If we really want to show those awards juries we means business, we should all SEND OUR AWARDS BACK in protest. Now THAT’s a statement.
The revolution starts here. I’ve already done the decent thing… trust me, there’s gonna be some shit stains up at the International Travel Advertising Awards when my commendation (Silver) lands on their desk tomorrow morning.
Who’s with me?
Banal comment of the week: Awards are subjective.
Personally I can’t get my head around why anyone would think Inception deserved an Oscar but you’re an intelligent guy so I am sure you have your reasons.
Well it won four, so it’s not just me.
The problem to me is not with awards per se, it’s the objectivication of awards by some agencies to the point that effectiveness and real creativity gets eroded.
There is a thin but very very significant line between “we need to do better work that wins awards” and “we need to win more awards”.
I think someone could draw a Venn diagram showing the correlation between work produced in past 12 months and attitude towards awards. If you’re having a blinding year and winning everything, awards are great. If you’ve had a crap year, with all your ideas getting blown out or fucked up, then inevitably awards are a wank-fest and all the work that won is shit. I’d like to see them boycotted, but as many point out, they’re too ingrained in the financial make-up of the industry. Re: the films, I thought Inception and Hurt Locker were both shit.
Ben, I agree with a lot of what you’re saying, but in my experience the only people who want to boycott awards have ALWAYS won quite a few themselves. It’s much easier to take that position when you know you’ve been ‘recognized’ for decent work, than it is for someone who’s won next to feck all.