The Books

Advertising is one of the few jobs that actually awards and showcases its people for good work. The only other ones I can think of are the film and literary industry, so it's in pretty small, elite company.

Imagine a CPA awards show for best tax return?

While there are dozens upon dozens of local, national and international awards, one of the most notable comes with it no golden statue or certificate. It is simply to get your work featured in the Communications Arts Advertising Annual, which, to my delight, arrived in the mail today.

After practically tearing the thing in two to get it out of it’s cardboard fortress-of-a-package, I excitedly pieced through it, but tried to keep in mind some caveat-like words on the subject from those much wiser than I’ll ever be:

"Awards books can help. They’re a physical rendering of what is considered pretty good work. They’re fun to look at. They’re a reminder of what’s possible. Awards books can give you a jump start. But don’t spend all day reading them. The idea isn’t really in there. It’s inside you."

-David Fowler, Ogilvy & Mather

"Don’t become an ad groupie. Don’t become this thing where you’re following the award books . . . If that’s all you seek, you can get that, but it won’t be as much of an accomplishment if all you create is all you’ve seen in the books."

-Mark Fenske

"Make no mistake. Good ads sell product. Good ads also win awards. But remember they win because they’re good. They’re not good merely because they win."

-Jeffrey Epstein, Director, Chicago Portfolio School

"Advice to young creatives: Study the One Show annual. Study D&AD. Go back about ten years for each. Memorize every ad in there and then forget them. Do not try to replicate what has been done. However daunting it may seem, the only way to succeed as a creative in advertising is to carve out your own niche. After you've studied advertising annuals, pay equal attention to films, books, and anything that creates that elusive spark."

-Eric Silver, ECD, BBDO NY

"Award shows are so irrelevant. You can do a campaign or execution, or come up with an idea or song or a video or whatever it is to a specific group of people and for specific clients to meet a specific business objective and have it be wildly successful. The consumers that you're talking to love it, embrace it, sales are responsive and they go through the roof. So it’s a huge success, undeniably, everyone is happy, everyone is thrilled and yet you take that thing, put it on a reel and play it in a dark room by some beach or whatever, and it won’t have the same meaning because the difference is the only thing that works in a situation like that is where you're not assuming anything of your audience, you’re not taking advantage of any knowledge or situation of who they are."

-Kevin Proudfoot, Wieden + Kennedy NY

"Relying on annuals actually makes it harder to write ads. You may well end up with nothing more than an acute awareness of all the great ideas that can’t be used because they’ve already been done."

-Suzanne Pope, john st. Toronto

"If awards are why you want to get into this business, then don’t get into this business."

-Luke Sullivan

"I think advertising agencies are run on motivation. Awards are a great way to motivate people and to stay updated on what your peers are doing. The problem is when people do work to get awards. Awards are healthy as long as they’re a consequence of good work and never the goal of it."

-Jose Molla, la comunidad

And my personal favorite,

"Good creatives might often be products of the books. Great creatives write the books."

-Tom Monahan

Talk about lighting a fire under an ad student's ass, Tom.

Hanging up in the Martin Agency is an old self-promotional print ad with a headline that is something to the tune of:

"Oh, Honey. Let's buy thist product. The agency that does their advertising just won 10 One Show pencils."

Coincidentally (and ironically), it got into the One Show that year. And what is so genius about it is a perfect segway into a few of my own thoughts on the subject of awards.

Growing up, I was always the kind of person who wanted the "full package" when I saw ads, and I am the exact same way now. What I mean by that is I loved the wildly creative ads, the ones with the crazy, far-out thinking. The ones with the smart, groundbreaking, award-winning ideas that changed and molded the way I thought about the world. But I only liked them if I thought they actually made me want to buy the product, or at the very least, think about the brand top-of-mind. In other words, I couldn't stand the ads that were wild and crazy and different, just for the sake of being wild and crazy and different.

Above all, they had to persuade.

I suppose we're all like that to an extent. As ad folk we all want to see ads that are funny, interesting and wild, but at the same time have the business sense to actually motivate someone to action. With some of the ads you see nowadays (and as a creative this might unintentionally count as heresy in Mark Fenske's eyes), it seems like it's too much of the former, and not enough of the latter.

I feel like sometimes creatives sit down and do work not to solve a business problem or to make a brand famous.

They sit down to make themselves famous.

Now don't get me wrong. I am all for creatives injecting their own philosophies and worldviews into society via Pizza Hut commercials. I don't think there's anything wrong with wanting to win awards and become wealthy and known within the ad world. Hell, that's most definitely what I'm going to try to do (and in many cases am trying to do now).

I think that working for yourself above your creative director, above your agency, above your clients, is a smart, pure move. But in the end, going back to the Martin Agency's self-deprecating humor on the subject, there's still this to think about:

Consumers don't give a shit if your ad campaign wins an award or not.

Clients that win awards don't pay the bills. Clients that win market share do.

I pray Fenske never reads this.

dubs. out.