on creative awards: judging at this year's creative club austria

Coming from an advertising background I have worked in various studios and agencies with completely different takes on awards for the creative world. I myself mostly went with the agency „policy“ when I was employed. Since I got invited to be a judge for the years creative club austria jury,  I thought it is time, to write about it and express some of my experiences.

Some of the agencies I worked with over the last 10 years thought creative awards were super important, especially for the young creatives to get their work recognized and honored. (A lot of them also used it as some sort of job market to head hunt creatives.) Others did it to gain publicity and saw it as self-promotion for their studio and yet another group did it to attract clients. Though all of this are valid ideas, I always got the feeling that a lot of creatives sent in their work to purely find validation and purpose. Validation from other creatives saying „You are a good one - keep on doing it!“

The one thing I found weird a lot of times is the fact, that a lot of creative award shows are from creatives for creatives. So creatives get judged by creatives working in the same field. So no client included, no consumer no „outsider“ at all. I truly believe that you can dissect, find and judge good ideas as well as creativity. But sometimes I had the feeling that the consumer, for whom all the things are created in the end and especially the client who pays for it and delivers the groundwork are totally left out and should play a role in this process. 

So I guess it is a very personal and subjective topic what you make of all the prices. I personally think, it is always nice to get validation but that is not a reason for me to send in work. With partners like salon alpin (where the client or the agency most of the time does the send ins) it makes and made total sense during the last years. Since we won awards like a couple of golden lions in Cannes for FALTER INFERNO more people know the studio now. On an international level. More briefs come in and the respect levels have changed for sure. So it was proper self-promotion AND the client loved the outcome. So for self-promotion and publicity: YES! 

Of course we were proud of it and I also think it raises the bar for animation in Austria but in the end, I find myself being the hardest critique for everything I do. Over the years I won several prices. National and international. And we sure reached the top level with the golden lions, but until now it never occurred to me to list them somewhere, let alone have a list in my drawer to keep track of it. I hope at the end of the day my work speaks for itself.

What I think is a total no go - and maybe that is why I am always a little paranoid by those awards - are the so-called „GOLD IDEAS“. Ideas that get produced ONLY to win awards. Not because the creatives got an actual brief and really wanted to solve a client’s problem and help with good ideas and awesome execution, but because they want awards. They bend the rules to an ugly amount of „white lies“ and that is something that truly grosses me out. So I think awards are something good. As long as everybody is honest with the work they send in, the reason why they do it (at least to themselves) and as long as the judges are a good bunch of people that come with no „emotional bagged“ and no „emotional connections“ to judge truthfully with the aim of finding the best ideas in the room.

So I am very much looking forward to being a judge for this years CCA. Because I AM some sort of „outsider“, not being a member of the creative club. It is going to be super interesting and I hope to see you all at this year's gala on the 20th of April!