The advertising and design fraternities in South Africa, and around the world for that matter, have long held great value in the idea of winning an award.
Walking away with a trophy, displaying it on the office mantle, adding a logo onto one’s website and including the details in client pitches have forever been the driving forces behind entering industry awards. But do they still hold the value they did? And are they worth the time and money needed to take part?
It’s no secret that everyone, no matter what they say, likes to see at least some recognition for the work they do.
So, it makes sense for agencies and their teams alike to add award winning work to their list of goals, but this should not define the work they create or become their overall north star.
In my mind, work should be created to solve a client’s problem, bring forth a shared vision or create real change via collaboration – and if this happens to win an award, that’s a big cherry on the top.
The upsides
Winning awards, of course, has many positives. They can assist your business in building credibility in your industry by validating your business model, product or service.
A line of well-respected awards also has the ability to demonstrate that your business endevours have been recognised by experts in the field and as important, certain award wins can set you apart from your competitors.
And standing out holds much more gravity than just attracting new clients, a strong business profile can also assist in securing investment opportunities.
Free exposure
The free exposure garnered via the award ceremony’s public relations efforts doesn’t hurt either but possibly the most valuable result of an award streak is the benefit of assisting in the ability to strengthen a team’s morale and foster a feeling of value and recognition.
For us, at DashDigital, it’s all about quality over quantity. We don’t believe in simply entering awards for the sake of it, we hold a few awards very dear and bear these in mind when we are creating work that we believe could have award winning legs.
There is a growing list of awards that one can enter these days, and this tends to dilute the prestige they hold and the impact they create, but if you carefully consider your business goals, understand what your industry sees as most relevant, the right award entries can be hugely valuable.
The downsides
As with everything, entering awards come at a cost. And not just the monetary kind, which interestingly enough, can be quite hefty today. The real cost comes as a result of the unbillable hours used to create the entry, which in many cases requires a lot of work.
Great award entries are not something that you slap together overnight, if you’re really in it for the right reasons, your award entry should be a stellar reflection of your business, your people and the work that you are entering.
This obviously takes time and often sees team members taken off other client work to create something that ultimately could not even gain anything.
It’s really about weighing up what is more important at the time, crucial client deadlines or the possibility of winning an award.
Impact of loss
The other downside of entering awards, which is often overlooked, is the impact that a loss or lack of nomination has on the team who created the work and played a role in entering it. Losing out on a highly esteemed accolade or suffering a line of losses can have very negative effects on a team’s morale and should be considered when choosing to send that award entry in.
Another negative of losing out on an award is your client’s disappointment. Like agencies, clients value certain awards very highly and when these aren’t secured, relationships can take a knock.
It’s therefore crucial that you manage expectations upfront when you enter work done for a certain client, this goes a long way to ensuring everyone is on the same page and that if things don’t go exactly as desired, disappointment is kept to a minimum.
All in all, however, I still believe that the positives associated with winning the right award far outweigh the negatives. And I can say that the awards we have notched up over the past few years have gone a long way to reaffirming our belief in the great work we produce.
Rogan Jansen is co-founder and creative director at the Cape Town based design studio DashDigital.
