Should awards award? If you pay to enter a race, shouldn’t there be a winner?
Last night’s Australian Interactive Media Industry Association Awards only saw 17 winners named across the 29 categories. In this guest post, Travis Johnson questions whether withholding awards in categories where shortlisted teams have paid to attend the ceremony is fair.
Last night we attended the AIMIA Awards and were fortunate to pick up a couple of gongs.
The location was great, had a funny host (Eddie Perfect), tasty food and great company by many of the leaders of the digital industry.
From probably something like 500 entries there were 109 finalists across 29 categories and we took our seats eagerly waiting to see which work was deemed industry best. However minutes into the awards themselves many of us were a little bewildered.
Apparently of the 29 categories, there would only be 17 categories that awarded winners and some highly commendeds within these same categories. Six categories would only receive highly commended as the top honour, with the remaining six being listed as finalists only.
AIMIA explained this year’s new judging process and its importance for the awards future. “One of the fundamental changes we made to this year’s judging process was to insist that an Amy is only awarded to work that judges felt grew the industry as a whole in the specific category.”
On one hand you can argue that a certain standard needs to be upheld that maintains the prestige around winners, albeit a very subjective criteria that winners should ‘grow the industry’.
However just like competitive sport and competitions, on game day the best team wins. Their work may not be the best ever seen; however amongst peers and against the stated criteria they are the best of the day and I believe should be recognised as such.
For the broader advertising industry we generally don’t spend a lot of money advertising our brands to attract new business; awards tend to be our key marketing effort and allows clients to understand who is doing well and creating the best work within their specialism. They’re important. Of course some have more rigorous judging criteria and hold more weight than others but that discussion is for another day.
Companies put a ton of money into their award submissions – it takes a lot of time to write them, produce videos, images, staging sites and of course covering the entry fees. Then if you’re a finalist you’d probably attend the awards at a couple of hundred bucks each for you and your colleagues.
Awards shows are big business. If you’re going to create them and run them, then to be fair to the efforts of those entering, awards should award.
Travis Johnson is the CEO of Mnet which won two awards out of the 17 categories awarded last night.
Rob Wong CEO of AIMIA was invited to respond to Johnson’s remarks. He made the following statement:
“This year’s Awards judging process was enhanced to reflect the fast moving digital industry. All of our finalists demonstrated an extraordinary level of work.
“Finalists whose work stood not only above the judging criteria and the competition, but raised the bar for the industry were awarded an Amy.
“The AIMIA Awards recognised different levels of excellent and outstanding work. A highly commended was awarded to finalists who excelled in certain areas of the criteria and stood out in the market against their competition.”
- Declaration of interest: On occasion Mumbrella has organised awards where a jury has declined to name a winner. In response to industry feedback, it is now our practice where standards are not high enough, to withdraw the category at shortlisting stage so teams are not asked to pay to attend a ceremony where their category will have no winner.
Hmmm. I’m an AIMIA member. Does this mean if I don’t think they’ve delivered value for me at the end of the year, I can get my money back?
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Couldn’t agree with this article more…
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What a scam. Just like photography awards, design and digital awards are now a fairly transparent money-making enterprise, often giving awards to questionable quality work that makes other entrants wonder just how much nepitism is involved. But not even GIVING an award to paying entrants who are supporting the enterprise?! What. The. Hell. I hope their submissions fall through the floor for next year.
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If it is a competition and there is a shortlist there should be a winner.
Pathetic.
DB
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Hmm,
so last year we complained that awards were handed out for dodgy and or unjustified work, this year we are complaining that even though our work isnt deserving, we should win anyway?
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Also agree with this. I would also add that every entrant should have the opportunity to ask for additional feedback and be able to access the judges notes relating to their own entry submission. It takes HOURS to submit each award entry. Just as interview candidates request feedback, and new business pitches provide feedback on request, Awards should do the same. The whole process needs more transparency.
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I’m writing a sitcom about the advertising industry’sobsession with freestanding bits of engraved perspex. The next episode just wrote itself.
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Seriously they should tell you that there is no winner in your category before you buy the tickets – not dupe people into attending and then endure the embarrassment in front of their peers when the whole room gets told that actually their work wasn’t of a high enough quality to even warrant a winner. From feeling chuffed to being stuffed in a second. Yuk.
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“it is now our practice where standards are not high enough, to withdraw the category at shortlisting stage so teams are not asked to pay to attend a ceremony where their category will have no winner.”
Well that seems like the obvious and sensible answer.
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No medals were awarded in the Olympics 100m sprint for men. The judges decided they weren’t fast enough. Whilst in Hollywood, no Oscar was awarded for Best Film – the Academy didn’t think any of this years films was as good as last years!
Honestly, who do these jerks think they are?!
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As the leading digital industry body it is our responsibility to support and help improve the industry that we represent.
The Awards were intentionally changed this year to remove the “competitive sport” element that some other award shows entertain. The focus was to truly benchmark the work against industry best practice and provide an accreditation platform for business to engage with.
More akin to attaining a higher education degree, than a winning a ‘best on the day’ sporting match, the AMYs this year set a new standard in Award show excellence by showcasing outstanding examples of digital media. (not simply the best digital media, this year.)
We stand by the decision, ensuring that our industry produces work of an exceptional standard. We congratulate all those who were recognised (finalists, highly commended and winners) and appreciate the investment in the industry made by all who entered and supported the event.
We really hope this will set a new benchmark in industry award shows and look forward to continuing to help increase the standards within our industry.
Matt Griffin
Co-Chair of Judging (AIMIA)
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Awards are meaningless. Anyone who focuses on winning awards is focusing on the wrong thing rather than focusing on delivering results for their clients or improving people’s lives in some way.
The whole advertising industry is a huge corrupt scam, and digital should distance itself from it and become something worthwhile. Technology can change lives for the better so stop focusing on conning people out of their money to sell more fizzy drinks, and start changing the world for the better. Without the sycophantic back patting and self congratulatory “award ceremonies” which are also basically a big scam too.
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@ Matt
Just curious as to how you determine ‘industry best practise’ when one would assume the best work of the industry was entered (why wouldn’t you?) and then selected by Aimia as finalists?
Are there other awards or criteria entrants are being compared to, that they are not aware of?
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what about awarding agencies that actually make money instead of splashing out to create the sort of fluff that wins awards?
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@max
amen
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I found the night quite confusing. Host was great, location fine but when it came to the awards i didn’t understand what the expectations were in each category or what the ‘finalists’ were deemed to meet or exceed.
Their name and title of the work was just splashed on a screen and then the winner had a static screen shot of said work. No metrics, no explanation (bar the award presenter talking over the clapping) and i wasn’t any wiser as to why they were such great pieces of work.
Next year would suggest tables so people can chat and relax, a bit of an overview on the category, touch a bit on each finalist (like in the Oscars/Music awards a clip would be cool) and then a winner with a reason why….would make much more sense and celebrates the work for the agency and client much more.
IMHO
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Had this very issue with PRIA in the past. Was very disappointed to find out on the night that awards would not be presented in our category, despite a number of entries. No one was determined to have met their standard, but they were more than happy to take our money to attend the event. Extremely unprofessional and we won’t be renewing our membership.
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AIMIAs aren’t a competiton, they’re a group hug for agencies with work that can’t win anywhere else. And it’s definitely not an adequate reflection of the digital landscape.
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@Montgomery we all love a hug sure, but can you substantiate the “work that can’t win anywhere else” claim?
The Grand Prix winner by VML has done well on the awards circuit (and will win more, I bet), I Touch Myself from Soap too, amongst others.
What do you think would make it a better reflection of the digital landscape? What Australian digital work from the past year was missing?
Tim
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Matt,
By all means don’t have winners if none are good enough. But you would have known they weren’t good enough when you got to the shortlist. If you were doing your job properly.
So you shouldn’t have sold me a $275 ticket to find out the bad news. Also – $275, and not even a sit down dinner. Very fucking greedy.
Let’s be honest, these aards are about paying the salaries of aimia’s staff, not about celebrating good work. If it was you’d have actually talked about the work in the ceremony.
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Great night out though! We had a ball, well done
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If the St. George Smart Watch App was awarded an AIMIA for ” work that judges felt grew the industry as a whole in the specific category.” – then the they need to find new judges, new judging criteria. They made an app that shows one data field. The design is Skewmorphic outdated rubbish that ignores the UI design recommendations. Seriously any other finalist in that category was better than that. http://www.misaustralia.com.au.....BK1Q24AsRK
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