Advertising Awards Hurt Advertising

A speaker at a recent advertising event boasted about the 400 – yes, 400! -- creative awards he had won. Not long before that, a copy writer promoting a seminar said his credentials included more than 700 awards – and he was under 35.  A large agency ends its emails with a sig claiming it has won more awards than anyone else.  A new creative director profiled in an advertising magazine wants to put his agency on the map “by winning more awards.”

So many awards are given out like candy at a children’s birthday party that the  advertising industry threatens to become a parody of itself. Worse, however, the plethora of awards is dragging the industry into irrelevance in the eyes of the business community, which is especially disheartening at a time when marketing is trying to win a long-sought seat in executive boardrooms.

Awards do have a place.  Every industry has its feel-good events. Awards represent a  psychic payoff in an industry renowned for low pay and long, hard hours. It looks good on resumes as long as the number of awards is confined to double-digits. And it can put a smile of the face of clients who don’t know any better.

But the award-giving – and the excessive importance agencies attach to winning yet another plaque or piece of plastic – has clearly gotten out of hand.  Not only does the number of awards make any individual award practically meaningless, but the deceitful practice of “scam ads” – crafting an ad just to enter in award shows – is an open secret. For example, Lintas & Partners Worldwide’s Australian agency had to return two Bronze Lions won at the International Advertising Festival when it was discovered that neither ad had won.

Agencies must understand that winning awards has little to do with winning the respect of the business community. In order for agencies to achieve the long-sought goal of being seen as strategic partners instead of glorified art schools., they must judge advertising by the same standards that business uses to judge itself.

Look at the criteria for most advertising shows – “impact,” “creative,” visionary,”  “boldness,” “awesome,” “stunning” and other pretty words. These fluffy award standards are usually applied by judges from the advertising world, which is a bit like having fathers and mothers referee their childrens’ football games.  Fun yes, credible no.

For awards to be credible, judges must come from the business world. Additionally, criteria must be based on business standards and measurements. One of the world’s most prestigious awards already recognizes this. Since 1980, the IPA Advertising Effectiveness Awards Competition has given out awards every two years based on a close analysis of advertising effectiveness and “a clear demonstration that advertising can be proven to work, against measurable criteria.” Most of the judges are business experts with no links to agencies.

Travelocity.co.uk, an online travel booking site, won a “Gold” IPA award after demonstrating a 123% increase in visits, a sales boost of 135% and a 44% growth in market share. The ROI was estimated at of £5.60 for every £1 spent. Virgin Mobile won an award from the Advertising Federation of Australia with a campaign that delivered $37.9 million in incremental profit and a return on investment of $4.36 for every $1 spent.

The best practices for marketing accountability, recently released by the Association of National Advertisers, make excellent criteria for future awards that seek business relevance.  These practices include “metrics that reflect management expectations; a rigorous, end-to-end measurement process; and responsibility for proving short-term ROI of marketing expenditures.” Awards groups must also look at using respected business consultancies like Booz Allen & Hamilton or PwC  instead of creative directors and similar ilk to judge competitions.

Some in the industry argue that a rigorous focus on metrics will dampen creativity. Absolutely not.  “Cog,” the award-winning, Internet-popular ad for Honda produced by Wieden + Kennedy UK, was responsible for a 28% increase in sales and £388 million more revenue.

David Ogilvy, the godfather of advertising, said it best in 1994:  "Nowadays, you know, the creative departments and agencies are dominated by specialists in television. Their ambition is to win awards at festivals. They don't give a damn whether their commercials will sell, provided they entertain and win awards.  They won't have anything to do with research if they can help it.  These creative entertainers have done the advertising business appalling damage."

Agencies are always on the hunt for new business.  They should remember that businesses that focus on financial and other numbers are not going to be interested in agencies that focus on the number of awards.  400 – yes, 400! – awards indeed. What does that have to do with ROI?

Comments

[Hamish Pringle]

Haute couture, ready to wear, and advertising awards

It was good to see Nick crediting the IPA Effectiveness Awards - see http://www.ipaeffectivenessawards.co.uk for more about them. However I wanted to add something about the value of creative awards to 'Adland'.

The analogy for me is with haute couture fashion shows. The extraordinary, beautiful, but often completely impractical clothing paraded on the Paris catwalks is only to be worn by a tiny number of extremely wealthy customers and, on that basis alone, the whole exercise is uneconomic.

However the acres of glamorous and aspirational publicity that results from these fashion house shows has a massive promotional effect on the sales of their related brands. Their haute couture designs not only inform their diffusion and ready to wear collections, they also inspire the rest of the high street's ranges. Catwalk fashion is the image building 'loss leader' for luxury goods brands and the designer 'R&D' for the High Street.

So, in the same way, we should not necessarily expect creative work that wins top awards at Cannes, or D&AD to be cost-effective (though it's a happy fact that roughly half the IPA Effectiveness winners are also awarded creatively). Rather we should see this truly outstanding work as Adland's 'R&D'.

Creative people's criteria for awarding prizes are not the practical, objective, ones of sales effects, they are the subjective perceptions of originality. Thus work that 'gets in the book' becomes an inspiration for the rest of the creative people trying, in David Abbott's words "To say what has to be said in a way that's never been said before" for their clients.

However, the reality is that very often highly successful campaigns are not truly original in the creative award-winning sense, as they are adaptations of, or variations on, proven themes. These themes may well have had their origins in award-winning creative work of the past.

Thus RKCR Y&R's celebrity-driven campaign for M&S has helped turn around a failing business, and won the 2006 IPA Grand Prix, but is unlikely to win a lion or a pencil. The same is true of VCCP's highly visual O2 Grand Prix of 2004 and Tesco's celebrity-based Grand Prix of 2000. All these ideas were enormously popular with customers and made millions in profit for their clients, but were less popular with creative awards juries.

On occasion the creative juries and the IPA agree, as when top creative prizes were awarded to BBH's Barnardo's campaign, our Grand Prix of the year 2002, and MCBD's Travelcity, joint Grand Prix with Burkitt DDB's Bakers Complete in 2005, but we shouldn't be worried if this is the exception rather than the rule.

It's the job of creative awards juries to recognise, reward and promote creativity as an end in itself. It's the job of the IPA Effectiveness Awards to prove that the investment in an advertising and marketing communications returned a profit, without direct reference to its creative content.

[Mike Smock]

Hi Nick,

Great post. Couldn't agree more. Below are two posts we did on BtoB magazines criteria for selecting their "Marketer of The Year".

http://twoscenarios.typepad.com/maneuver_marketing_commun/2004/04/the_marketer_of.html

http://twoscenarios.typepad.com/maneuver_marketing_commun/2004/12/chief_marketing.html