Are Advertising Awards going to the dogs?

Coming off of any awards show there is always buzz about who won, who should have won, who was thanked, who should have been thanks, and so forth.  However, coming off of last weeks Cannes awards there has been far more negative responses than normal and with just cause.

Issue 1:  Outsourcing, Partnerships, and Collaborations

BBDO, at no surprise to the advertising community, received some major hardware for their “Voyeur” campaign for HBO.  However, their accolades are not coming without question and the questions are being asked by a partner in the campaign, Big Spaceship.  Big Spaceship, a digital agency, played an influential role in the digital media portion of the “Voyeur” campaign (the digital portion making up 7 of the awards, 5 of which were golds).  Big Spaceship did not receive any credit for this work, in terms of awards, due to an award rule that states an award can only go to a single winner.  Big Spaceship is also questioning BBDO, who feels that since the idea for the campaign was created by BBDO the awards went to their rightful owner.

This brings about many questions.  Do awards systems need to update themselves to change with the times of outsourcing, partnerships, and collaborations?  Even the largest of shops can rarely handle all areas of a campaign, especially one of this magnitude; utilizing specialists is going to be most efficient and get the best results.  This asks the next question: What about the little guy?  Will it always be the “big names” that get the awards or will the little guys have their day?  Maybe the answer is more awards or no awards at all or sharing awards on a weekly basis, but whatever the outcome the system seems broken.

Issue 2: Submitting content that was created for the award

Now this is an issue that has been happening for year, but this year it was an issue of harming a brand.  A piece of viral content created “for” J.C. Penney   called “Speed Dressing” showed a teenage boy and girl timing themselves to how quickly they could dress and undress themselves (separately).  At the end of the piece the boy shows up at the girl’s house, they address the mother figure, and then walk upstairs with the tagline “Today’s the day to get away with it.”  J.C. Penney’s came forth that they had no idea that this piece was ever created.  They further stated that they were “appalled” and that it implied the company condoned teenage intercourse.  The company demanded that the piece be pulled from all locations (it got 16,000 views on youtube in less than 24 hours).  The credit for the piece lists persons from the company’s agency, Saatchi & Saatchi, and from Epoch Films.  Saatchi & Saatchi apologized saying the spot was created for submission to the Cannes awards by a “third-party vendor” with J.C. Penney’s having no knowledge of the piece.  They then blamed Epoch for the issue.

Again more questions to ask:  What does this mean for the agency client relationship (JCP spending about 475 million last year in media)?   Why would you jeopardize a brand you helped to build or a client for that matter for an award? Beyond just that, should “created for the awards” pieces even be considered?

So with all this drama surrounding this award shows, it has to make you wonder if these awards are really worth it?  Do they still help sell client’s on an agencies work?  Do we still need to spend long hours filling out those awards packets?  Can the little guy get anything out of them?  Or is it a tradition worth keeping like having a homecoming queen?  Do the awards really give credit to an industry that does not get it often enough?   Any thought?

Fallon’s answer to these questions, in a re-branding/viral effort, is their “You Are Fallon” pieces which show them collecting and melting a number of their awards to make a sign to christen their new office. Again questions to answer:  Is this a slap in the face to the award shows?  Is it simple a viral piece?  Or is this an agency putting its foot down?