Close the award book and go outside.
Since it’s Cannes season and all the big wigs are hobnobbing in the South of France, I decided to write today’s article on the value and impact of big ad awards on the everyday life of a creative in the agency.
Awards are amazing. I’m not saying that they should be the only focus of one’s success; in fact I don’t agree with it at all at this point of my career. (It’s easy to say because I’ve crossed the big ones off my own list.) But anyway, awards are a good way for creatives to focus on excellence – especially when you are working in an industry with a lot of noise in the ad space. Sometimes we need to look at what’s happening outside our own environment so we know where we stand at a global level amongst our peers. Creatives by the purest of definitions are creators who don’t need a rule book to move people. Be it in music, theatre or even advertising. Yes, I just compared adland to real art.
Here would be a good place for a metaphor: awards are a lot like getting grades in school. Your parents are proud of your achievement and you probably get a nice present for achieving the accolade. My parents certainly applied that theory while I was growing up. But more and more parents start to realise that there must be other ways to measure one’s achievement. In modern parenting terms, it’s not about the A+, sometimes your child has worked very hard to get that B- too. He doesn’t need to be a lawyer, being a rodeo clown gives him so much glee. A lot of times, it’s not even grades. A student who is consistently getting C grades can be performing in sports or other areas that warrant them to be celebrated despite not getting the perfect letter grade. Good parents know this. Hopefully.
So are awards important? Yes.
Do we need everyone scrambling around to get one? No.
There is a great documentary on Michelin restaurants that talks about the hard work that gets poured into winning those elusive culinary stars. It showcases great names and takes you behind the scenes and reveals the secrets of how these stars are garnered. 3 Michelin stars can guarantee your restaurant tables are booked all year around and you have carte blanche over what price you want to charge for the meals. However, the part I want to mention from this great watch is this: when you get one star, you have to have the second. And when you get the second, nothing less than the third will do. But a funny thing happens when you get the third star; you live in the fear of losing them. That’s a great analogy for how collecting points, shiny metals objects, Uber ratings etc. can cause you to lose your mind. Seemingly arbitrary measures of achievement as set by a group of your peers. In the case of the ad industry, those figures don’t even carry through with you to the next year. No, ladies and gentleman. We need to do it all over again the following year. Imagine if you had 3 Michelin stars and they got removed from you at the end of the year. So stupid. So why does it matter to us so much? If you want a laugh break, watch Jerry Seinfeld give his take on this topic.
There is no denying the value a big award can have on your career. Inversely, there is no denying how not winning one can impact your career too. But at some point hopefully – if you are competent in what you are doing – if you are actually getting better at your craft, then just doing the best work possible for your clients should be the way forward. Sometimes I feel there is a disconnect between where awards are and what is needed to have a successful business. Your bosses would rather have you make sure we are doing the best creative job possible for clients. And that comes with the caveat of not scaring them with crazy pie-in-the-sky ideas. On the other hand, those same bosses are being given unreasonable pressure to win awards at the highest global level of creativity. In tough markets (as is most nowadays), that just means it’s more of the creatives’ problem now. “Keep the money flowing and deliver on creative excellence. Oh and I need it yesterday.” Creatives are caught between a rock and a hard place. Not only are they failing to deliver on the best work because the clients are more skittish than ever, they are watching over their shoulders too for the creative boss seeing how great the work that’s being generated. It’s tough for creatives at the moment.
Ok, enough rant. Let’s get to how to do better work. Close the award book. Shut out the world. A great boss once told me many moons ago, as we thumbed to the page my work was showcased on in a heavy award manual, “Z, get ready for this idea to be copied for years.” The point he was making was that most great award winning work happens up to a year before the award shows. Then the awards take place, then they get to the printed manuals about a year later. Then they sit in the office and creatives flip through them for inspiration. By the time someone gets inspired creatively the idea is already passé. So stop doing that. You are just regurgitating old thoughts.
Go out instead. Go to museums. Visit more art galleries. Attend more concerts. Travel a ton more. That’s where you will get your [original] inspiration. I feel ad agencies sometimes forget that if they don’t give time to their creatives, then they will get nothing but a sea of sameness. And unfortunately, that’s what is happening more lately and that’s why some markets (Asia) are getting left behind. Make time for yourself. Stop having that pint after work for a few months. Reload your mind. You’ll be the better for it.
Peace.
