InspiRAYtion 24: How to enter at an award show
Adman Rayomand J Patell in this week's InspiRAYtion explains that when entering a category, it is necessary to consider what the category even is, and if the work does not fit, one should not waste their effort by entering it there.
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By Rayomand J Patell
Been a minute since my last article, got busy with a couple of pitches and you know how that goes. Well, I’m back and this time, in a departure from the usual, I’m here not on a Sunday morning but on a Thursday. It’s a holiday this time but going ahead, Thursday is the new Friday as they say.
So let’s get down to it. I’ve been a Juror for a while and whether it’s one of the top shows in the country or some of the newer ones, I notice some anomalies when people enter. So if InspiRAYtion 23 talked about how to put a portfolio together, this one comes in at the other end of the spectrum - how to win an award by entering correctly.
Here’s a tip - all Jurors are hoping to God, someone somewhere has done something cool AF to make judging worth the time and effort. We want to as Gustave says in Ratatouille, be a ‘friend of the new’. We want to say something is a breath of fresh air and mean it. We want to celebrate something that shouldn’t exist, we want to delight in something that was birthed against all the odds. We’re looking for magnificence so that we can reward it with as much gusto as we can.
And along come the offenders. The piece entered in the wrong category. The piece that makes you wonder if the entrant understands what the category even is. The film case study sent in for… a normal print ad. The exact same case study entered in infinite categories. Because, why not?
Please, I beg. When you’re entering a category, consider what the category even is and if your work does NOT fit, do NOT enter it in there. It’s soul destroying to have to slide it out at the short list stage for being incorrect.
And if you’ve made a case study hurrah, but submitting the same case study in categories as diverse as Integrated to Print Craft… it’s enough to make the most optimistic of us want to head to the nearest bar.
When you’re entering a category, try to pretend you were paying for the entry yourself. And then ask yourself - should this really be here. If the answer is no - don’t waste money, your CFO is bound to thank you. I’m all for maximising a piece’s chances, but someone with experience and awareness of its real chances is a prerequisite. Youth and optimism are wonderful but they are always beaten hollow by age and treachery. The selection of award show categories is a sniper’s game, not that of Rambo armed with multiple machine guns scattering fire all over.
When you do a case study, ask yourself if it just must begin with ‘In India…’. Be nice to Jurors everywhere and stop using that phrase. It really grates on our collective nerves.
Some people say your award case study must have a large budget. I say so long as you very quickly establish what the problem was and then demonstrate your awesome solution for it, you’ve got a Juror’s eyebrow perking up. If the rest of your case study is cogent, coherent and gets to the point of what you did first and foremost - you have a chance of it being studied deeper. But if you’re going to waffle about it, you risk running up against the wrath of Jurors bored out of their minds. You don’t need to outspend you need to outsmart and that, my young friends, can be done on a shoestring budget too.
Read More: InspiRAYtion: The second coming of Suits
On another note, a lot of work at the shortlist stage is nothing to write home about. There’s a large body of stuff but even after the shortlist, the wide valley between a shortlist and a Merit, is Grand Canyonesque. If an idea could be done by any other brand in the category, it violates the first and foremost rule of differentiation. If in an integrated category you choose to show stuff that just ran in different mediums rather than integrating them meaningfully and driving traffic from one to the other beautifully (example The Bear and the Hare) there’s just no point. A piece of illustration may be killing it in a Craft category but have absolutely no merit in winning as an ad per se.
If your agency has a series of Creative Reviews please attend them. You’ll understand how your ECD or NCD or CCO reacts to a room full of work. You’ll see what they pick up on and pick on. You’ll know when they lean in, that stuff is about to get real. Having the idea in the first place was about 1 percent of the work. The actual 99% of the work is in packaging it and giving it great context, so that it looks like the piece of genius a Juror is hellbent on finding.
As we run up to Cannes - in a year when the networks are having a hard time, with the Independents running rings around them, it will be interesting to see what wins. My vote is on a return to or an elevation of Jury choices for work that operates at the human level. Using AI to talk to multiple people is so tech bro. But harnessing all that AI out there into something that touches the soul, that’s going to win big. At least, that’s my fervent wish. It is up to Jurors to celebrate the iconic each year and define the path advertising takes in the twelve months ahead. Make sure your piece, is something they want to celebrate for all the right reasons. Till we meet again! Have an inspiring week.
Rayomand J Patell is an advertising veteran and InspiRAYtion is a weekend column on everything about advertising and marketing.
