Advertising award shows.

I’ve heard everything there is to say about them. “Advertising awards shows are all about the industry celebrating itself.” “I don’t enter award shows, because they not really about our clients’ business.” Or my favorite one: “It’s just a beauty contest – and the best work really never wins.”

But advertising award shows do matter. They matter on many levels.  Here are my top three reasons why award shows matter.

• Celebration of Work. I never understood this complaint.  Why shouldn’t we celebrate the work we create? Advertising is like most businesses ­– we look ahead. Far ahead. We’re currently working on products that won’t launch until 2020 and 2021.  When you work on one project for two, three or four years before launch – when your peers recognize it as breakthrough work – damn right we should celebrate.  Unlike non-healthcare advertising, we toil for years on a product waiting for clinical trial data to be released. Waiting for the FDA to approve a product (or not). Waiting for the office of OPDP to review our work before it can be published. (By the way – I was going to spell out the acronym OPDP – but then I thought if you don’t know what it stands for – you won’t care.)  The healthcare advertising community is incredibly small. Everyone knows everyone else. We enjoy celebrating our friends and co-workers and former co-worker’s successes. If one agency or one campaign elevates the work of the entire healthcare industry – we all benefit.
• Talent. Talent. Adverting award shows help us find, recruit and retain the top creative, planning, account and activation talent from around the world. And in an incredibly small industry – the agency that has the best talent usually wins. How do I know this is true?  After Cannes this year – a year when our healthcare network won more awards than ever before – I was contacted by creative talent from all over the globe. London. Dubai. San Paolo. Not to mention New York, Boston, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago and even Columbus, Ohio. I’ve also had students emailing from all the top portfolio schools.  Never before has working in healthcare advertising been viewed equally as working in non-healthcare advertising. It was only 4 years ago when I did a poll among college students entering the workforce. At that time 89% of advertising students said they would only work in healthcare advertising if they had no other choice.  Clearly that has changed. Finding the best talent has become (slightly) easier. And by continuing to create amazing work will hopefully keep them.
• Award shows motivate us to create better work. We hate losing. When was the last time you heard a co-worker say ‘I don’t want to win new business?’ That never happens.  As creative people we want to win all the time. So when our work doesn’t win in award shows – we don’t say ‘I don’t want to win awards’ – we say ‘Damn, that work was better – what do I have to do to make my work better.” By elevating the work, by challenging our own processes, by understanding what makes people change behavior all over the world, by not settling for just something that’s really good but great – that what makes us excited to come to work every day. And those nuggets can be found everywhere. In the back room of a focus group. Deep within a products data. By spending time listening or observing trends online. By looking at new thinking in other industries. By recognizing that you don’t have it all figured out.  Award shows make us challenge everything. Because we want to be the best in the world. And we hate losing.

So, if you’re one of the people who think that award shows don’t matter, don’t enter. Just know that while you may be saving the entry fees, you’re also missing  the opportunities. To shine. To inspire. To elevate an industry.

rl
1.10.18

I recently had a client say something very disturbing to me at the end of a creative review. He mentioned that he loved a specific idea that we had just presented. It was new, innovative and impactful. But then he said the following ‘my fear is that it won’t live past testing.’

What?

If the work is connecting with the audience, is creating the type of behavior we desire and is differentiating in the category (and industry), why would it not live past research? His response: ‘people like what they’ve seen before, safe, easy to accept and non-confrontational.’ In short – work that’s good, yet comfortable.

I didn’t get in to advertising to do comfortable work.

The story I told him about another campaign is 100% true. I will leave out the names of the players – but I swear this is exactly how this played out.

The year was 2001. I was working on a large national business. We tested three campaigns all over the nation. Qual. Quant. Big cities. Small cities. I presented storyboards, animatics and scripts. After the research was over, it was clear there were two campaigns that could be produced and would do well in the marketplace. But with all research, there had to be one winner.

The research company recommended campaign A. The reasons were simple; people really liked it. It was consistently at the top in rank order of the campaigns. It was fun, easy to remember and said great things about the company and product. People felt it was ‘confident’ and ‘gutsy.’ Exactly what you want a campaign to be. As an agency, we did our homework and knew that we could create endless executions and that it would work across all audiences.

But campaign B also had good points. People couldn’t get it out of their head. It was sticky. Some people loved it. Some people hated it. But everyone remembered it. And the best part about it, people wanted to see more executions. But it also had some issues. People said that it only worked with a lot of executions. They would get tired of the individual executions quickly – which meant it would be costly to produce and maintain.

So the research company’s vote was solidly behind campaign A.

Where it got tricky was that the CMO and I both believed in campaign B. It was a bigger idea. I could be rolled out for years. And the best part, it differentiated the company from its competition better than campaign A.

So when we brought both campaigns to the CEO of the company, we recommended campaign B – even though the research said to produce the other work.

The CEO completely agreed.

In the meeting – the CMO said something that I will never forget, and I repeat time and time again. He said, “Research is only one data point. Our experience is a data point. Our common sense is a data point. The experience of our agency is a data point. And they all are important. But research isn’t the only data point. And people who make all their decisions based 100% on research will eventually fail. Because they’ll accept a good idea while overlooking potentially a great idea.”

Campaign B ran for over 10 years. We produced over 100 TV commercials, print, out-of-home, events and radio. The tagline is engraved in bronze on the Advertising Walk of Fame on Madison Avenue in New York City. It won countless awards. But most importantly, it proved to me that they only way to get to great – is not to settle for good.

Even when the data says that good is good enough.

11.9.17

I play in a fantasy football league with 9 other members of my family. We enjoy the trash talking. We enjoy the competition. And we enjoy winning. I recently gave my wife some advice about setting her line-up, and I realized it’s the same process I use to staff our office in advertising.  So here are a few things I’ve learned over the years.

Pick the best players. I know this is simplistic, but just as the best football players score the most points; the best creatives do the best work. And this is true no matter what level you’re hiring. Best junior books out of college are your long-term investments. They’ll pay quick dividends some times and long term dividends most of the time.  Senior level creatives who have done great work in the past will some times do great work again in the future.  They may be more consistent. But they may not be as spectacular.

Have a deep bench. Football players have bye weeks. Creatives have vacations, holidays, sick leave and creative dry spells. Having a deep bench will allow you to bring in reinforcements when you need them. And the interesting thing about advertising is you never know when you’re going to need them.  You can’t look at a calendar and say, ‘oh, this week I’ll need to swap out my best player for someone else.’ You need as many really good people as possible. (As I’m writing this – I got an email that an incredibly talented ACD is leaving for another agency. Having a deep bench makes this a little less painful)

Pick your best line-up and let ’em play. Once you’ve brought in your talented people, you have to let them play. You can coach them, you can put them in the best position to succeed, but you have to let them play. You can’t bench them if they have a few bad presentations or new business pitches or weeks.  You brought them into your company because you thought they were talented. Let them do their thing.

Always look for value players. Just because someone didn’t succeed at a competitor, doesn’t mean they won’t succeed under your system. I always tell a story about my first day on the job at another agency. The current CD’s told me that this art director needed to be terminated. I refused. And after 6 months in the new system he was winning awards and being promoted. I can point to 10 different stories like this one. Where someone flourished under a new system or a new team or a new partner. These team members can be the most valuable and loyal on your team. Because your need each other to succeed.

Don’t be afraid to cut big name players. Some times you just have to admit you made a mistake. You spent a lot of money on someone and it’s just not working. They’re just not performing, as you would have hoped. And sometimes its just time. We all know people who stayed in jobs way too long. And we also know people who are on our staff who would probably be doing better some place else. But we’re afraid to make the big move, have the tough conversation or rock the boat.  You have to rock the boat. Believe me, its better for everyone.

If you’ve done your homework, if you’ve hired correctly, you should have a winning year. But remember – your team is a reflection of you. How well you hire is how well they’ll perform. Good luck. And may the best team win.

R

11.19.15

When I’m sitting with someone and they want to show me their portfolio – I always have the same request “show me your favorite campaign.”  And I’m surprised how few people know the answer to this question.  Some say, “I like everything in my portfolio,” which you and I both know is not true.  Everyone should have a favorite campaign. A campaign that you loved when you created it. A campaign that you still love.

And if you don’t have a campaign that you love, here is the easiest way to create one — I call it a passion project.  Create a campaign for something that you are incredibly passionate about. Maybe you were a ballet dancer as a child and still love dance. Maybe you have a passion for Ultimate Frisbee. Perhaps you always loved to travel and spent 3 weeks in Prague. Do that campaign.

There are two reasons to create a passion campaign.  First of all — it won’t be in everyone else’s portfolio. Every year there are advertising college competitions. And every year I see hundreds of campaigns for the same product.  One year it was KFC. I can’t tell you how many KFC campaigns I saw. And I would always ask the same question — “did you win the competition?”  And everyone says, “no.”  (BTW – if you enter a student competition – don’t put the work in your portfolio if you didn’t win.)  The second reason (and the most important) is when you present a passion project; you present it with more passion. You know the subject matter inside and out. Your face lights up. And as a viewer, I can feel your excitement.

A former student of mine created my favorite passion project. On her resume, in the about me section, was a line about the Girl Scouts of America. She told me that she loved being a Girl Scout. So she created a campaign to try and persuade tween girls to stay in scouting longer. She told me a story about how Girl Scouts actually gets better as you get older. That you get to do more meaningful community service. That you get to make a difference. I loved the campaign before I even saw it. Because I loved her explanation.

From that moment forward, I have always encouraged students to create passion project campaigns. Every time I see one, I’m happy to see how much heart and soul go into those projects. The projects are always about something very personal. The arts. Dance. Theater. Hiking. Travel. Someone even create a campaign about their favorite biker bar.

No matter how ‘finished’ your portfolio, you can make it even better by creating a passion project campaign. Trust me on this one. It will become your favorite campaign. It will be the first one your present in an interview.  And it will be better than anything you create for KFC.

R

10.12.15

You have to watch this video. You have to share this with everyone you know. You have to help Mollie’s Fund change behavior around the world.  The first time I watched this video my heart skipped a beat. Granted, I knew the punchline. I heard about this idea months ago in an office when the creative team was pitching the idea.  I loved it then. I loved it even more after the production.

Now it’s your turn.  Share it. View it. Spread the word.  If we can save one person, we did our job.  If we can save thousands, it would be a miracle.  If we can save hundreds of thousands, then our work would be done.

Thank you all in advance.

RL

2.10.15