Doing work just to win awards? That’s worth nothing
D&AD CEO Tim Lindsay argues scam is a disease and doing work to just win awards is worth nothing.
You would expect us to say this, but it has been an exciting year at D&AD. With the help of the Glue Society, Google and others we’ve brought New Blood to Australian shores for the first time, launched our new NowCreate programme and forged new partnerships with creative organisations around the world – such as AWARD – to enable us to better support the global creative community. It has been a good year.
However, as much as we’d like to focus on all the positives about our wonderful business, it’s important we don’t stick our head in the sand and ignore the more difficult stuff.
The only true way to fix this problem is to make this headline a truth.
The simple fact is that many people’s KPIs (and subsequent career progression and salaries) are linked to awards. Most people know it’s all bullshit.
Awards are not all bullshit.
In order to explain why, I need to explain the business to you. It will take a while, but stay with me.
Here’s why awards are important.
Businesses need to be successful.
In the advertising business, the CFO is the real guy who runs the show. Not the CEO? Yes, because the agency generally is owned by either shareholders or investors. The CFO is responsible for delivering a profit to them. If the CEO is shit, it’s generally the CFO who will orchestrate his removal. Have a look at all agencies. The CFO generally sits there for a period of 10-20 years. CEOs come and go an awful lot.
Why does the CFO have to deliver a profit instead of breaking even?
If the CFO doesn’t, investors withdraw or dump stock until the business literally becomes worthless. That $4 a share becomes 20¢. And that’s not good for anyone, especially the people who have shares in the business. If you’re at a smart agency, like Clems Melbourne, that’s your senior management team.
In order for the CFO to be successful, he needs to constantly improve the bottom line. And most CFO’s, while likeable guys, are ruthless and will let nothing stop them improving the bottom line. The CFO is the CEO’s boss, and the CEO is the ECD’s boss. Sometimes.
When the CEO gets up in front of the agency and says ‘we’re down 12% on last year so we need to let people go’ the CEO doesn’t mean the agency lost 12% or, say $12 million. He means profit is down 12% and the CFO has had his arse kicked by the big kahuna’s overseas and is now kicking the CEO’s arse. So agencies count their loss in profit as a loss, rather than a loss in real tangible revenue. When there’s a loss in real, tangible revenue (not profit) agencies shed staff like it’s Berlin, 1945.
So this all relates to profit and the stock market and you’d be forgiven for wondering where the heck do awards come into the picture.
It’s really simple.
A good run on the awards circuit is generally followed by a good run of new business. To get on the pitch lists, to get the attention of clients, or procurement companies like Trinity P3 who run the pitches, you need to win awards. It’s like buying a bottle of wine, do you get the one with the gold stickers from 1975 or do you get the one with the gold stickers from 2015?
More importantly, when you win awards shares go up as people speculate that the business will improve on profit. They hope the new growth in the business will mean growth for their dividends or stock price. Google your holding companies stock prices and compare them to huge hauls or Holding company of the year awards at Cannes.
A good run on the awards circuit is invariably followed by one-two years of shit work for all the new clients as the new staff, scared of losing their jobs ‘bed them in’ and ‘keep them happy’. A good run is also followed by good but overlooked creatives and suits leaving for better offers, or ridiculous sums of money. Ka-ching.
But the short-sighted agency doesn’t care, they let them walk as they know clients and Tinity P3 will still think the place is awesome, despite the loss of the key thinkers on the campaign they’re known to be awesome for. Awards take 1-2 years to finish their life cycle, clients mistakenly think the agency is good rather than the people who did the work. If you’re a client Ray, follow the people who did the good work, rather than the management who took the credit.
Global networks, in order to win global business (mega ka-ching) need to have all of their key regions performing well. Those regions are increasingly shifting to Asia, which is why Australia (and New Zealand, of all places) have an enormous amount of pressure on them to do award winning work.
Why? When you’re presented with two agencies, which will you choose? Network of the year for Asia Pacific, America and Europe or some place you’ve only heard of in Antarctica?
How is network or holding company of the year determined?
Awards. In fact Network of the year is actually an award itself.
The good news is, these days those awards need to be for real, tangible clients and work that solves real, tangible business problems. No jury is ever going to award scam, it reflects as badly on them as it reflects on the business who entered it. And no jury wants that hassle.
Ray, I hope my very long explanation has explained why awards are not ‘all bullshit’. But I will say they should be the measure of success, not the reason for it. But from client to creatives to CFOs to shareholders, awards matter. The only people who don’t seem to think so are suits, but everyone knows they’re fucking useless anyway.
Let me know if you have any questions.
Dear @Ray,
Not entirely right I’m sorry.
1] Trinity P3 recommends agencies that don’t even win awards let alone win them.
2] A big piece of business is currently talking to agencies as long as they don’t enter awards! The client has ‘had it’ with agencies obsession with awards.
Make that ‘don’t even ENTER awards let alone win them’.
Apologies