Why Winning Awards Is More Than Just Recognition:
An Agency Perspective
Our team gets to work on A LOT of incredible stuff.
From robot mowers to pre-rolled joints. Premium stone veneers to pedagogical advancements. Sperm motility to rice-and-quinoa recipes. Why do I love working in advertising? (That’s rhetorical.)
And at the end of every year, not only do we get to look back on all the cool shit we’ve learned and done, but we also have a chance to win awards. AWARDS!
There are generally two camps when it comes to awards. You’ve got the “Who Cares?” Camp and the “Let’s Show Off!” Camp. Polar opposites. It makes me wonder, What do these awards even mean?
(Existential is my middle name, so it’s about to get deep here. I also use a lot of parentheticals.)
When I look back on 2022, the first thing that comes to mind is NOT the work, not the advertising.
It’s more about how it felt like another year of adjustments, pivoting, and learning how to cope with new world challenges.
And not to mention figuring out how to connect human-to-human, deliver awesome ideas, and stay mentally stable in a personal, professional, and cultural landscape that is confusing, harrowing, and also filled with potential.
That’s the context in which our team did award-winning work. As people, teammates, friends, parents, siblings, “children,” and colleagues, whatever the various roles we took on at any given time, facing headwinds sometimes and tailwinds others. We won awards. So, I repeat, what does that mean?
I think back on the year again, but this time focusing on the work. Immediately, my mind jumps from the work itself to the people who actually made everything happen. The work and the people cannot be separated. Without the people, the work is fantasy. Dust. Without the people, the awards are glints of light in an unattainable distance. (I told you I was existential.)
Our people achieved amazing things. A smattering of examples:
An Account Director has a hard conversation with a client. The project was laced with complexities and fraught with peril from the jump. We all knew it, but we said “yes” anyway. And we all knew, including the Account Director, that this moment would come. When she had to tell the client something that would put everyone in a bad position. A moment when everything hung in the balance, from the work to the relationship to people’s livelihoods maybe. Well, the Account Director did it, and she did it with that perfect but rare balance of respect and assertiveness. The project ended in a stunningly positive way, and the world kept turning.
A Creative Leader reads a story to his sick child on a Wednesday night. It’s been a tough day. Unexpected and significant changes came in from the client. A sore throat and a mild cough turned into extreme aches and a fever of 102. The day got away from the Creative Leader. Some chicken nuggets and then the bedtime story. The little one fell asleep, and the Creative Leader somehow returned to his “office” and hammered out one of those ideas that absolutely saves everyone’s ass. The unexpected and significant changes were made, and then some. The project ended in a stunningly positive way, and the world kept turning.
A Digital Strategist comes up with a new brand position approach that shifts the mindset of a client’s entire matrix organization. The organization is strong but takes a long time to make decisions, making the prospect of getting a new brand position greenlit pretty tenuous (oh, and there’s a huge campaign concept that hinges on this new position being greenlit). The Digital Strategist scoured the client’s research, exhaustively swept the vast competitive landscape, found his own hidden gems of insight, crafted razor-sharp audiences, pragmatically organized the thoughts, and composed a deck with an ironclad perspective and impeccable aesthetics. (Chef’s kiss.) The client got everybody in the organization to buy in. The campaign got moving. The project ended in a stunningly positive way, and the world kept turning.
These are people with talent. Highly intelligent. Dedicated to excellence. Driven by their need to create or solve problems or feel fulfilled or teach others. Maybe all of those things, and many more.
These are people with lives outside of work. Responsibilities, dreams, problems. They live in an unprecedented time with the ground shifting continually under their feet.
These are people who were able to deliver work for their clients that was on brief, on brand, on point in every way. This work ultimately ended up winning awards.
What do awards mean? What are awards? What I think or how I choose to view this is that awards are humanity. They are not just recognition of work. They are proof of heart, soul, and imagination, things that make our world so interesting.
Winning awards is good. The fantastic people who win them? Even better.
What should clients think about awards? It’s simple, really. You asked someone to help you. They did it, and they did it better than their peers, your other options. Clients should be proud of the work…and grateful for the people who brought it to life.