Winning ad awards is nice, but it’s not everything

I have to be transparent: The topic of “winning awards” always makes me laugh. 

Even though, over the years, the companies I’ve owned – including All Media Design Group – have won some Clio’s, Telly Awards, and Cleveland Advertising Club awards, as well as some awards for work we’ve done on Festivals. 

But here’s the thing: We didn’t enter any of our work. 

Sometimes our clients do. Sometimes the production companies we partner with enter the work.  

But I’ve just never been an “awards” kind of guy. 

Sure, it’s nice when we get them. And we very much appreciate each one of them. 

But I’ve always considered receiving an award for an ad we created something to be taken with a grain of salt. 

Why? Because the process is very subjective.  An ad is creative – not a science or based on cold, hard data. 

A person either likes it or they don’t.  

Here’s a case in point:

We have a longstanding client who once said to me, “Boy, the commercials we used to do with “this certain theme” were just awful, weren’t they?”

He was referring to some of the ads we did way back in the day, when the client had a very small budget. Probably 25 times smaller budget than what we have to work with now.

Here’s the thing: No matter the size of the budget, you can have great creative.

But if the budget doesn’t back up the production needs, then you end up with a piece of creative that is worth the $1500 budget for a commercial.  

On the other hand, when this client was able to increase their budget significantly, they were able to see the difference that production can have on the creative.

Truth be told, the concept for the commercials we produced for this client long ago was good. 

We did what we could with the budget we had.  

But when you have $300,000 to spend on a commercial, like many national advertisers do, you can make even a lousy concept work better.

That’s just the way it works.

But here at All Media Design Group, we approach every single commercial with one thought:  “Will it move more product?” 

You see, I can go after awards, but my JOB is to sell more widgets – cars, sandwiches, tires, subscriptions, whatever we are working on!  

If awards come, then great. But I truly don’t care about them.

I guess that’s why I have never been an Academy Awards, Grammy, Emmy kind of guy. I don’t watch the shows. I think they send the wrong message.  

Patting ourselves on the back is not what we do here. 

Moving more widgets is all we concern ourselves with.

We just smile, accept, and put the awards in the cases in our lobby.  

Then, we stay focused on keeping the needle moving, because ultimately that is how our clients judge us. And we’re OK with that.