Pursuit of awards is ‘very wrong’ says Clemenger Melbourne chairman Jim Moser
The panel (l-r): Jim Moser; Chris Jeffares, Adam Francis; Jason Dooris
The head of one of Australia’s most decorated ad agencies, Clemenger BBDO Group Melbourne, has said the pursuit of awards in itself is “very wrong”, arguing they should only be are a bonus of the good work agencies do.
Speaking at the Secrets of Agency Excellence conference in Melbourne this week, recently installed chairman of the group Jim Moser, said awards are important for new business and staff recruitment.
“The pursuit of awards of itself is very wrong, that’s not what should be happening. The award is an after benefit of the work you’re doing,” he said.
“Awards are extremely important and there’s two reasons why awards are important. One is new business in terms of attracting attention, getting your name in the paper and letting people know you’re doing award-winning work is extremely important.
“The other is staff recruitment and you could say retention as part of that,” he said.
Moser continued by arguing creatives want to work at award-winning agencies.
“If you’re an award-winning agency, particularly for creative, you’re going to attract a better calibre of creative persons because they want to go work for a highly awarded agency.”
While he preferred not to comment on the awards budget for Clemenger BBDO Melbourne as he is still quite new to the agency, Moser said his previous agency Colenso BBDO in Auckland, one of the most awarded agencies in the world, had a budget of $200,000 a year.
“And for an agency that has revenues of 25-26m, $200,000 is nothing. They are very, very strategic and careful about which awards to go into and they do a balance between creative and effectiveness awards,” he said.
“The most important thing to both Clemenger Melbourne and Colenso BBDO Auckland is we are dominating the effectiveness awards and dominating the creative awards.”
Miranda Ward
Linkedin
Every pay rise I ever got was off the back of, or related to, winning awards.
Change that, and awards won’t look quite so shiny.
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If there were no awards…Clems wouldn’t exist. It is part of their kpi’s.
But then, that avarice was endemic at the Campaign Palace, where their jury stacked ways meant that all the awards they won were left contemptuously in a wheelbarrow at reception. And look where they are now.
Agencies like Clems, Droga and possibly the Monkeys need to make sure their award profile is in sync with their effectiveness.
Somehow…i think work needs to be done. MY Moser. …you may have some work to realign priorities.
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That reminds me …… Did Mumbrella ever find where those awarding winning print ads from 2014 were placed?
I know some were tracked to Rouse Hill a free suburban in a suburb that has grown out of a cow paddock in Sydney’s north-west. But some were never found, is that still the state of play?
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I do love how he failed to mention Sydney in any of his speech. Nice touch.
But guys, read it again and you’ll see what he’s saying: “The pursuit of awards of itself is very wrong, that’s not what should be happening. The award is an after benefit of the work you’re doing,”
I couldn’t agree with him more and I’ve always won awards based on doing something good, rather than trying to win an award.
Common sense, the guy’s got it in spades.
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