News from Dick's Desk
Not all awards shows should be hated by clients
Clients often think creatives care more about award shows. Creatives always deny it. Creatives are lying most of the time. There. Said it. It's out in the open now. But it's true. It's the nature of the business. Creatives get paid more money when they win more awards. And sure, clients do want to win awards, too. But not too much. Too much means some intern is the only one working on day-to-day business.
In the last couple of years, advertising awards shows have gotten way, way out of hand. The cost is unbelieveable. And that's just to enter. There's the cost of making the ads nice and pretty. And because our awards shows are coveted by creatives all over the globe, agencies must enter a whole bunch of ads in all kinds of ridiculous categories just to win something, anything. Judges have more than judging on their agenda. So they don't help those crazy-bad odds. That's putting it nicely. I used to compare some award shows to the Academy Awards but the top ad shows are actually harder to win since the Oscars have a special category for foreign pics, whereas these ad shows don't.
This ain't sour grapes. Each of the creative partners at TDH have won just about every award show there is. The first year we started the agency we won both a One Show and a Communication Arts Award, two of the absolute top award shows in the world. I'm not bragging. I'm just showing that I'm not some old, bitter man.
So it was refreshing to hear that a new award show is gaining some traction--one that everyone can love. It's called the Tomorrow Awards. In full disclosure we have yet to win a Tomorrow Award (hopefully the key word there is "yet") and we don't own this show.
The Tomorrow Awards have many redeeming traits. First, one winner is not enough. I always found it ridiculous that only one ad would win each category. How could anybody say that one ad is really the best ad in the world? Second, this award show offers a feature where the creators talk about their creation. Getting the back story can sometimes be more interesting than the result. Finally, and most importantly to clients, complete creativity is what is coveted most. It's not just a funny headline. It's the whole kahuna. A complete effort. The media. The creative. The result. Everything. The winner is this new creation, an ad Frankenstein that doesn't grunt so much. Both clients and creatives will enjoy and need to study these winners. And, of course, copy them in a new form.
Let's hope this award show survives. In fact, let's hope there are more just like it. So if you have some time, check it out. Okay, nobdy has some time any more. But if you're up at one in the morning worrying about something, this will take your mind off of whatever that is and perhaps inspire you to do even greater things.
In case you didn't click on it above, here is the link: http://tomorrowawards.com/archive_showcases.php?showcasecat_id=3&sh=top_50
Facebook is a waste of time
People say that a lot. And they’re right. It is a waste of time. A lot of people waste a lot of time on social media-- Facebook, Twitter, blogs. But you know what else is a waste of time? Television. People waste a lot of time watching TV. And it is for that very reason that marketers have been running commercials on TV for years.
I’ve been on the web side of advertising for over a decade now, and when I first started, the knock was that “the internet is a waste of time”. The more time that people “wasted” on the web, the more it was worth it for advertisers to figure out how to reach them there, to understand how it was similar and different from traditional advertising, and then to come up with campaigns that included digital, or that were entirely digital. When we started working with Fathead, we rationalized that social media should be their #1 medium. What's more social than sports and what better way to elicit fan passion than instigating a little trash talk or portraying Derek Jeter in a Cardinals uniform-- or even more despicable-- the Red Sox? (Check out our efforts in the "work" section under Fathead.)
In the same way, as social media matures, it’s important to understand how to reach people there as well. There are a few things social media can do very well:
1. Communicate directly with your most enthusiastic customers. People who already love you will follow, friend, or fan you. And they’re hoping you’ll tell them something. Maybe something for insiders, maybe something that isn’t in the commercials.
2. Listen to what people are saying about you. People have talked about your brand before, but this might be your first chance to hear what they say without doing focus groups or other research. There’s a chance to learn from the lovers and the haters.
3. Deliver targeted messages to limited groups that don’t make sense to broadcast. Whether it’s area-focused Twitter feeds or geo-targeted Facebook ads, you can reach smaller groups with separate messages (and avoid sending to people outside your target) through social media.
So, yes, social media is a waste of time, but maybe that’s a feature, not a bug.