Anonymous confessions from un-awarded creatives
Advertising awards are a celebration of the best. But this can have a two-fold effect, in that it can make some people feel - well, the worst. When you win an award, you feel on top of the world. But how do you feel when you haven't won any? The following confessions are the result of an anonymous survey, to get a sense of how the un-awarded really feel. This piece was first published on Gabberish.
Awards make me feel stressed. I feel pressure to win them, even they I know it’s not a real measure of the work was effective, smart, creative, or original. I also feel pressure to win them to advance my career, however winning doesn’t seem to make a huge difference. Not winning seems to matter more.
– Copywriter
I feel inspired and motivated by them, but I hate feeling pressured to win them and I get the feeling that they’re also the emperor’s new clothes – agencies want us to think they’re important so they can pay us less. They want us to think awards are payment enough.
– Creative director
It seems like a “right time, right place” kind of thing. I’m not ashamed I haven’t won more, but I’d like the opportunity to.
– Copywriter
I feel like success is constantly out of reach. It’s a constant stretch. At times it drives me with a relentless madness, in other moments there’s the delivery of satisfaction. Mostly it’s a need to strive for something greater than what exists.
– Senior art director
I find myself comparing myself to other creatives, but most of them are guys. The kind of guys that are able to strike up that “chummy” relationship with their boss over a beer. They’ve won lots of awards (I believe) because they’ve been given the opportunity. They have bosses that instantly believe in them. I think it’s a bigger problem than awards.
– Copywriter
I feel like shit when I read someone’s bio and compare what awards they’ve won. I have to actively challenge my thoughts if I see a more senior creative with few awards.
– Copywriter
It’s annoying when your boss’s attitude about a project changes because it’s won an award. They should know if it’s good or not without one. And there are many ideas that are great but aren’t suited to enter into shows.
– Art director
Awards make me feel conflicted. Jealous but excited. You see ideas you’ve had get awarded for others. But then when friends or colleagues win it makes me proud and happy for them. But then also hate them just a smidge. So yeah, conflicted.
– Art director
They’re a goal, but not a necessity. Industry recognition is always good, but when it comes too much and too often it loses its meaning.
– Creative
Sometimes it’s overkill. Like when the same thing keeps getting awarded, I lose interest. It does make you think, shit, do I have anything in the bag this year. It’s not a bad self evaluation/check in.
– Art director
It’s uncomfortable, because a lot of the time people win shitloads, because they’ve had time to make the case videos and all of that. Juniors are hardly ever given time to make case videos. It also always reminds me of all the great ideas we’ve had that the client has killed, and then sometimes you see something similar win at Cannes.
– Junior copywriter
Awards make me feel anxious, excited, and depressed.
– Copywriter
No other industry feels the need to pat themselves on the back as much as we do. Creatives feel the need to temper eating client’s shit with endless peer recognition.
– Creative director
They’re great if you have a good idea that your boss loves. Terrible if you don’t.
– Copywriter
What do awards mean to me? Re-cutting effing case studies 100x. Having a boss who has anxiety. Often, disappointment.
– Creative director
I think people are way too invested in awards, but it’s actually just our industry patting ourselves on the back. Nobody else in the world cares about a Gold Lion.
I hope that we can focus more on the work and trust ourselves that they are great, and not need to enter it into award shows to prove it to ourselves.
– Copywriter
Credit: sarah-janeedis.com
Siobhan Fitzgerald is the founder of Gabberish. This piece was first published on gabberish.com.
Diddums
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Says the dude (because only a bloke would be so petty and bitchy) who probably won an award for best use of a star burst in a POS. And yes, POS has more than one meaning.
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imagine if those within other departments in an agency won individual awards.
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I realised quite early in my career that awards were a problem.
It cost me too much money to frame them and the only way i could afford all the trophies was when my company paid for it.
After my third year, I just clipped them together with a fat paper clip and stopped bothering with treating them as validation.
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Awards are like smoking.
People think you’re cool.
But deep down you’re killing yourself.
And wasting a lot of money.
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Unless the mysterious copywriter that came up with the line ‘even they I know’ is some kind of forlorn poet trying to invoke the influence of all their past lives on their present self, they are lucky to have a job let alone contemplating all the awards they will never win.
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Please have marketing and CEO client confessions about advertising awards next!
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It’s an anonymous survey, mate. You think all copywriters give the same care and professional attention to everything they ever write?
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Awards have completely lost their way. When I was younger I used to hold them on a pedestal. Winning them meant something, and was usually accompanied with a pay rise. Then, the awards became a proxy for the pay rise (“Work here because you’ll get to do lots of award-winning work”). These days, I’ve come to realise that outside of a very small group of people, awards count for fuck-all. They are only useful to help convince insecure potential bosses who don’t know good work from bad, headhunters who don’t really know what they’re doing, or bosses who are under pressure to deliver awards as part of their KPIs. I now see awards, and the people who value them, very differently.
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A golfer doesn’t practice their golf swing by trying to miss the ball and estimating how far it would have gone.
So when a copywriter is both practicing their craft and commenting on it, and they want what they’re saying to be taken seriously they should probably try and hit the ball.
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