It's Time for an Awards Show that Celebrates Clients

And the award winner is…

Not the advertisers whose budget funded the work that is being awarded. Advertising awards, and there are many of them, are important. They recognise the creativity and craft of the industry. Agencies use them to attract talent. And they are routinely presented in pitch decks as proof of capability.

I often have to explain to agencies that presenting a big, long list of industry awards is not as compelling to a prospective client as they think it is. The agency’s reaction is typically one of shock and disbelief. Sure, your existing client will be happy you have been recognised for the work you do for them. But the ability to win advertising awards is typically not at the top of the list of reasons most advertisers use to select their agency.

Now, I know many of the award shows are aware of this, as they have responded by adding an award category for the marketer, marketing team or client of the year. This is their way to try and win the interest and engagement of the very people who fund all these awards and dare I say it - make the awards beauty pageant possible. But if marketers did not spend money with agencies, then the need for advertising awards would be moot.

But perhaps the reason the awards are more significant for agencies than for their clients is they are designed from an agency perspective. Most of the creative awards are designed from a craft and/or channel perspective. Film, radio/audio, print, out of home, digital, activation etc. The award categories recognise the craft within the channel for both the idea and the execution.

The beauty of this approach is it allows and assumes a like-for -like comparison. Which is the best TVC? Which is the best out of home? But is it truly alike? There is regular criticism of award shows that it is often the quirky TV campaign idea for the previously unheard-of not-for-profit client, or the digital activation idea for the one location retailer that takes out the top gong for creativity in these categories.

But marketers know that categories vary significantly from one to the next. Depending on category norms, or government regulations, or industry self-regulatory guidelines. There are some categories where delivering award-winning ‘creative’ is infinitely more difficult than others. And isn’t that the point of being creative?

Suppose the purpose of creativity is to help effectively solve the business and marketing issues facing the organisation. Should we not have awards that compare the business category with the business category and not execution with execution? Winning the best creative TVC for a program for social good is not the same as winning it for finding a creative way to sell laundry liquid, even if it is environmentally friendly.

Business works within business categories and would be infinitely more meaningful for a client if their agency won the creative award for the best campaign of the year in their category, than it is for winning the best out of home execution for one of their other clients. If you wanted clients to sit up and take notice of your awards, it would be winning them for the best creative idea for disrupting their category in a positive way.

It would even be the type of award that could be relevant for new business too. Imagine how many clients would be wanting to work with the agency that consistently took out the creative gong for creativity in the category of their business. It would be an achievement even the CEO of the company could relate.

Now there is an idea. You invite the CEOs and marketers of that category to judge the category by choosing the campaign they wished they had done. After all, this is often the criteria by which CCOs, ECDs and CDs judge the existing creative awards.

Imagine that, Mary Barra, Akio Toyoda, Jim Farley and Carlos Tavares are judging the most creative automotive advertising campaign of the year at next year’s Cannes Lion Festival. Now that is something that would get the whole business world focused on what creativity can do for business, wouldn’t it?