Hasta La Creative!

It’s that time of year again – Cannes is coming. Does the lure of hardware, sunshine, and glamour call you like a siren song? Are you dying to add a trophy to your office or brag to clients that you were nominated the umpteenth time for an award? If so, perhaps you’re in the wrong business.

Don’t get me wrong – I love awards. I have a box in my basement, full of old trophies and ribbons from high school standing as a monument to a time in my life when I lived for my work (at the time, my work was drill team, but you get the idea). There is nothing I like more than being singled out for being the best. Now that I’m a lot older and, hopefully, a little wiser, I’ve finally gained some perspective and would like to bring you back to reality, even if for just a moment:

1. Is the client happy? We must never forget that this business is always about “them” and never about “us.” What good does it do your client if the critics like your creative, but the client is not seeing much of a return on his/her investment? Clever is good. Profitable is better.
2. Are you doing good work on all of your campaigns, or on just one spot? It’s so easy to focus on only one commercial or campaign and pull out all the stops. Are all of the clients in your portfolio receiving the same consideration? If not, then it’s time to stop playing favorites and get back to work.
3. When pitching clients, how often do awards come up? Be honest. Do you spend more time talking about yourself than about what you can do for the client?
4. Define good work. I’ll bet if you ask 20 different ad professionals what good work is, you’ll get 20 different answers. Yet, we let a panel of, say, 10, determine what the best work is? No thanks.
5. Awards don’t always equal good work. I believe that for every award-winning agency, there are at least 10 non-winning ones that are doing as good, if not better, work. I had the great fortune to work for a small shop that routinely churned out great work. We never won awards for it, though. Why? We never entered. We knew that we turned out kick-ass work that got results for our clients, and that was all we needed to know.

Sara Barton is a copywriter, social media strategist, and avid blogger who is in search of her next opportunity. Contact her via twitter, LinkedIn, or her blog.