The Brand Agency withdraws from local awards – dominated by scam says MD Steve Harris
The Brand Agency in Perth has announced it will not be entering creative work in the 2012 Perth Advertising & Design Club (PADC) awards. Brand managing director, Steve Harris (pictured), said that the decision was part of a broader whole-of-business strategy to bring a greater focus on delivering results for clients, and lifting the creative aspirations to national and international levels.
“None of our clients compete solely against WA businesses. They are all in a marketplace with national and global companies. We don’t want to set a low benchmark for ourselves by being happy with Perth awards. This is part of a strategy to lift our aim and change our focus.”
“When you talk with client CEOs they aren’t even aware of the local awards and they don’t have any bearing on how they view and engage with their agency. They are interested in the results that their agency can deliver, and the brand that their agency can build.”
“Creative awards have their place, if they are managed correctly. They help raise standards because they should be about best practice, and they challenge creative agencies to be more inventive to the benefit of their clients. I think we’ve found over the years that being one of the most awarded agencies in the market has helped us attract the best talent.
“But we feel quite strongly that some awards have become too much about ego, and not enough about results. The world has changed and the ad industry hasn’t. Agencies need to recalibrate their thinking.
“The reality is that the local awards have become dominated by scam, and an agency can be very successful at awards shows if it undertakes a conscious strategy to win awards. This comes at a price, and the price is shifting your focus off what actually counts for your clients.”
“We’ve analysed the local awards and in most years of the past decade over half of all winners have been either from scam or not-for-profit clients. Given this it’s no wonder clients looking for a commercial outcome don’t give them much credence.
“Unless and until that situation changes, we see no value for The Brand Agency in participating in the local awards. We will however continue to enter selected national and International awards because we think that will help us stretch to the standards we aspire to.”
“The number one client turn off in a new business pitch is an agency that stands up and talks about all the creative awards it’s won. As an agency we have a singular focus, and that is having a positive impact on the business of our clients.”
Harris said that the Agency would still be part of the Oasis Ball which supports the Salvation Army’s Oasis Project: “We’ve just signed off on our Campaign Brief Awards entries for this year, but after this year we won’t be entering the creative awards again in the current format. It’s one of the best nights in Perth and The Brand Agency will continue to support it. This year we will once again probably have the largest presence of any agency, we’ve got a senior person on the committee and we subsidise staff tickets.”
The Brand Agency is Perth’s largest agency, with 95 Perth based staff, and offices in Melbourne, Sydney and Auckland.
10 Comments
Big deal. They are the Singo’s of Perth.
Them’s fighting words.
Perhaps it’s more about the camaraderie of the event and the local industry celebrating achievements? I guess it depends on how you look at it…
Unfortunately there’s no such thing as a 50% protest. If you’re pulling out of the show to make a stand, good for you. But you can’t then show up because ‘it’s a good night.’
Otherwise people will start to call you ‘50%’.
Spoken like a true connoisseur of the mediocre
carn’ the dockers!
“we don’t want to set a low benchmark for ourselves by being happy with Perth awards”.
Does this mean the Dockers’ club champion awards are off this year also?
This would be, of course, the same agency that did three full page colours for fucking Blu tack.
http://www.bestadsontv.com/ad/19444/Blu-Tack-Hammer
I have to agree with Steve Harris that a ‘conscious strategy to win awards’ shifts focus off what ‘actually counts for clients’. John Singleton once said something along the lines of ad awards being like giving the prize to the footy player who finishes the game with the cleanest pair of shorts. Thus we get ads without copy (“It clutters up the layout”), without headlines (“It’s a visual world”), and even without selling propositions (“All products are the same; it’s about resonating with the consumer now.”). It’s just nonsense. Advertising has largley lost its way and rabid award-seeking is one of the culprits.
So just like their ads for Blu-Tack then.
Tony
Scam is not a big issue in the WA market.
Over the past decade the Brand Agency has produced more blatant pro bono ads in the aim of awards than all other Perth agencies put together. It’s won them all their awards plus the odd Agency of the Year award.
Steve Harris has no credibility with this PR bullshit he is spinning now.