Dissecting glitz & Glamour.
It seems that the award circuit is never ending. Below are insights (shared among brands, tv networks, and agencies) driven by 4 common questions. I get asked a mixture of these on every award consulting call – thought you might be curious too!
1) WHY DO AWARDS MATTER?
When you think about the pizzazz surrounding awards, it may feel superficial (& in many ways it is! #jaded), but if you strip away the “stuff” making it feel as such, you’ll find pure gold.
You’ll find various and meaningful “WHYS.” People in our industry make the things they do to inspire change and action for the world that we live in. And without competition, we wouldn’t be pushed to do better work. This excellence is a snowball effect that can benefit everyone. But if you are unclear of your “WHY",” you can best believe that it will fall short in your work.
It starts with goals. If you are unclear of your awards goals, I suggest getting that sorted first, then reverse engineering a plan. Winning is great… but the win needs legs to support its purpose – and that’s unique to each and every team! Some common goals for awards are: staying top of mind with marketing/PR initiatives, attracting talent, biz dev, employee morale, and even promotions.
With your goal(s) identified, be sure to have a plan in place BEFORE and AFTER that “golden announcement” is made. The universe has the attention span and memory of a goldfish when it comes to good things (& the opposite for negative clusterf***s). Plan accordingly and be willing to go the distance.
2) CAN YOU GUARANTEE A WIN?
Fact is, you can never be 100%. To get a competitive edge, you need to buckle down and approach your work as an unbiased party (Brave Dog plays this “bad cop” role allllll the time – throwing spaghetti at the wall is a waste of everyone’s time and your money).
By looking into past winners as a benchmark, staying on the pulse of marketing campaigns via trades and social, and cutting the areas of your campaign that were not as strong prior to selecting categories, can all lead to a more level-headed and strategic approach. To be fair, if you’re not willing to do the homework, you’re not ready to submit.
3) IS IT REALLY GOLD OR BUST?
IMHO, no way! Now if you’ve done the research, you should have a pretty good understanding of where your work might land. If you’re confident that nominations will support your greater goal and winning is just a bonus – go for it. I know a handful of teams who ONLY care about getting a nomination (also known as a “finalist” position). They use those nominations to drive people to meet up for coffee/cocktails at the event, inspire a reason to send an email campaign, attract new talent, and also are an easy-to-drop note during a biz dev conversation that’s happening in the height of the action.
Pro tip: So how do you still get your best work recognized in a competition that is flooded with top talent? Break up with your campaign. Yup – break it. For starters, it's not science. And it's not 100% backed up by a fancy algorithm, but it works. Staying on top of the niche categories can sometimes get you in the door and give you greater leverage for addressing your main goals for awards.
For example, if your latest campaign had a strong social element, but the other components we’re not cutting-edge, that’s OK. Go for the home run by narrowing your focus on categories within social. At the end of the day, a win, is a win, is a win.
4) IS THE COST WORTH THE WIN?
If you’re looking to stretch your investment beyond the hardware, I highly recommend submitting to competitions that include an in-person event.
A simple “we won” graphic added to your website feels fleeting when there’s so much magic that can come from meeting IRL. I especially can’t in good conscience justify or suggest competitions to smaller creative teams that are missing this element – it would blow out their entire annual awards budget. Instead, invest the budget into new work for shows that have a meet up, or begin developing that top-tier case study video that’s required to even get a nod.
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If you are dissatisfied with the time spent, results, or just plain overwhelmed, Brave Dog provides creative award consultation and implementation. Rather than shuffling to complete the job in-house, or handing over the huge PR responsibility to an intern, they handle your award competitions A-Z.
Shoot me an email to ashley@bravedog.tv if you need a helping hand, or a resident bad cop 😉