Brent Smart: Maybe Brands Should Contribute to Awards Budgets

What advice would you give to someone entering the AWARD Awards for the first time and why should they enter?

Brent> Firstly, I would say that it is important to support our local creative awards. Sure, there are international awards that are a big deal, but it matters to be setting the standard in our local market and celebrating our homegrown creativity. Secondly, as a client, my advice is that awards aren’t why we do it, but they matter. It’s been proven that more creative marketing is more effective.

But how do you know if it is more creative? Awards are a good benchmark against the most creative work in the market. They are also important to the creative talent that work on our brands, so they should be important to us.

On that note, awards are a huge time and money burden on our agencies. If you are a true partner and your creative reputation will be enhanced by the awards, maybe you should contribute financially to the awards budget.

What kind of stories or cultural themes do you hope to see more of?

Brent> I want to see more big brand stories celebrated, less one-off tactics. We should celebrate the brands that are investing in the long of it, that are creating distinct voices or even worlds for their brands and are doing it in an enduring way that will live beyond the media plan. Indeed, let’s celebrate the work that punters actually see out in the world, not obscure case studies with millions of earned impressions and yet no visibility in real culture.

How do you think the definition of "creative excellence" has evolved in the last few years and where do you think it might go in the future?

Brent> "Creative excellence" has taken on new meaning for me in my current role at Telstra. It’s about how you can systematise creative excellence across a diverse team of 300 marketers, without strangling creativity. And that is a fine line to walk. So, we treat creative excellence as a capability with a position on my marketing leadership team, head of creative excellence, that you won’t see on many others.

We have a Creative Dial that lets us score very single creative output from every channel, every quarter. So we can quantify and diagnose our creative product and understand if it is getting closer to excellence.

But we only use the Dial post, never pre. We don’t sit in creative presentations and debate whether the idea is a 6.5 or 7.2. Sounds like we are trying to turn it all into science, but it is simply forming a common creative language and clear creative standards, because you have to know what excellent looks like before you have any chance of actually getting to creative excellence.

What’s one thing you want to see more of, and one thing you want to less of in Australian work?

Brent> I want to see less case studies explaining the work, and more work that stands on its own, without a case study. Because the consumer doesn’t see the case study video, only award juries do. I think we often forget that.

What do you expect of your agencies this year?

Brent> I expect the same thing of my agency every year. That they care hard. I’m thankful that they always do.

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The final entry deadline for the 46th AWARD Awards is 5pm AEDT, tomorrow - Wednesday 23 April. Enter here.