Award Shows are relevant, Dammit! Vol 6.

McCann was the big winner last night at the International Andy Awards for their work with Halo 3 . We've seen the ads, with the diarama on an enormous, detailed scale. It flipped the video-game-tv-spot norm of pure action and explosions and made it eerily quiet. But what took it further was the interviews of "veterans." It put a human face, a whole story to these video game characters.

But back to the title of the article: awarding work like this is good for advertising. It was a multimedia, highly interactive, thoughtful campaign. It wasn’t a goofy commercial. Nor did users didn’t have to buy anything to get involved, but it was oh so engaging. So, if we award work like this, then creatives will strive to do more of it, more of it will get presented, and more of it will get made. It's the natural selection of compelling content.

Oh, and results. The release of Halo 3 rocked Spiderman and Harry Potter.