InspiRAYtion 16 - The Blood Money Of Award Season
Money is one of the most inspiring ideas there is. Have a lot of it in your life. Don’t let your growth be derailed by the toxic march towards industrialised award-ising. Be a round the year practitioner of great Advertising, you owe your talent and yourself that much, writes ad man Rayomand J Patell.
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By Rayomand J Patell
Having made agencies subservient for the last 11 months, clients try to assuage their guilt by being indulgent about ‘award winning ideas’ presented this month.
It’s like those people who on a daily basis, bludgeon fur seals to death by creeping up upon them with a baseball bat to bash their skulls into pulp so as to get a fur coat without shrapnel involved, now donating to Animal Welfare.
See! We’re not terrible clients after all, sure we’ll back your little banner idea (or one off outdoor that three people will see on a week night in Vasai off the side road).
As with Diversity Equity and Inclusion initiatives, no idea is off the table this month. Either do it with zero budget, or make a case study that claims you did it and we’ll sign off on the release letter very enthusiastically and even thump you on the back should you win at the Upper Provence Festival of Creativity.
Poverty porn in an ad film a la ‘All We Imagine As Light’? Awesome.
Token ideas around female empowerment? Fantastic!
Entirely banal stunts around toilets for the Transgender community? Hurrah!
See bruh, we said you were the best creative team out there. It’s just that the market you know has certain desi realities… but your creativity bruv, it’s 'internashunal'.
If you’re a creative person getting suckered into this blood money awards ritual know you’re getting suckered.
The network agencies make winning awards a noble pursuit.
It is. For their holding companies.
Their share prices rise on their pecking order, once the report is in on which agencies won the most in the shows that matter. Your salary on the other hand, is still in the gutter. And you can’t pay your bhajiwalla with your Cannes Gold lion. And that, is where the cookie crumbles really quick.
The only reflection of your success at work, are the medical bills you can pay for your parents, the house you can buy for yourself, the school or University you can send your kids to. And even for creative people, there’s a hard conversation to be had about money.
Winning awards is an excellent diversion from that conversation. It works for the hungry starving creative seeking validation, the client who wishes to curry favour at the end of the year, and the Network at large. But, regardless of whether you’re winning Lions, Elephants, Gongs or Pencils, your kids aren’t going to be able to attend Harvard, or for that matter the average Nursery at Gurgaon on an advertising salary. No kids? Even pet food is expensive. Would you give your dog or cat anything less? Side note and shameless plug: I highly recommend Boggos for your pooch. Check them out on the gram.
The next time you join an alphabet soup network or one with the name of a long gone founder on the board, ask yourself if the gold on the awards shelves, has translated into gold in the bank for the winners. And I don’t mean the 4% increments the Asia Pac hubs decree are fair compensation for winners. Or, the phokat jamboree to the South of France they send you on to keep you back within the agency for another year. When you could be earning far more, elsewhere. Or, opening your own shop as P.G. at Talented, Aalap at TGTHR and so on have.
I’m not anti awards. I like winning them, I’ve won my fair share and I’ve been a Juror at the nicer shows for ages as my way of giving back to the Industry. But there’s the awards as a recognition at the end of the year for the great work you did through the year way of doing it - and then there’s the December season of award work that suckers our youngest, best and brightest minds.
Money is one of the most inspiring ideas there is. Have a lot of it in your life. Don’t let your growth be derailed by the toxic march towards industrialised award-ising. Be a round the year practitioner of great Advertising, you owe your talent and yourself that much.
Rayomand J Patell is an advertising veteran and InspiRAYtion is a weekend column on everything about advertising and marketing.
