Oh, I see.

Turns out these legends of the ad game are not looking to be my friend. Fine, I had nothing in common with them anyway. Apparently, you need to win some awards to get on their radar. That's why the Andy's did such a great job of selling their premise: Win an Andy, win them all. The campaign basically says that this particular award show is so prestigious, you'll get the other awards easy, and perhaps, friendship with the best of the best. So I'm off to register for the Andy's, since they used compelling content to get me into the season of awards shows.

Award Shows are Relevant, Dammit! Vol 8

So, I went to the One Show Interactive last night, Nikon and MRM Worldwide won a gold pencil for its project Nikon Picturetown. It's a ripe example of compelling content. They said, who better to taut the product of experts and afficianados than the users themselves? So they gave away free cameras and said "let us and the world know how it well it works." It spread like wildfire, and the users became lifetime fans. It's another step forward for these clients, who first dabbled with their D80 project, praised by new marketing bloggers like Joseph Jaffe . So the relevant part is this: If more creatives win awards for community based thinking like this, then more creatives will present it. And if those presentations are for forward thinking clients like Nikon, than our whole industry will benefit.

PS All this award show talk will end soon, I promise, the season's almost over.

Award Shows are Relevant, Dammit! Vol 7

Just an update. All the greatness and forward thinking of McCann's Halo3 Believe, that was honored with the Grandy at the Andy Awards , also won Best in Show at the One Show. All previous arguments that award shows are relevant apply here as well.

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.

Award Shows are relevant, dammit! vol.5

More to come. I'm just getting the excitement started. I forsee another smart move by the Andy Awards to be more modern, making modern advertising the star. Can't say more.

Award Shows are relevant, dammit! Volume 4.

Look, I don't want to be the guy who's all about awards, I just keep stumbling opon this stuff--sorry. But alas, via 9:01am, found out that the Emmy's have stepped up and welcomed broadband programming into its pool of contestants. This is like the first person to ever scream to a crowd, "hey guys, electricity is great, you know?" and the crowd cheers back, "here here! three cheers for electricity!"
But it's promising, because they're on to something with their criteria:“With broadband, the scope is global, the concept universal, and the community, all-inclusive. The amateur is the professional is the consumer. From the small screen to the smaller screen, NBC to MySpace, on television and online, the only differentiation worth making is good content from bad,” said Christie Morrongiello, Manager Daytime Entertainment Emmy Awards, NATAS.
Well put Christie, good content is compelling content. and its the only thing that will survive when broadband and tv are the same thing.

Award Shows are relevant, dammit! Volume Three

So I went to the one show last night. And I was getting really mad, because on top of the 30 or 40 pencils TBWA\Chiat\Day NY took home, I thought they were going to give best in show to the same set of ads.
But alas, One Show, you've shown me that you can honor good advertising. Skittles and Combos are great, I mean great commercials. But the Best of Show award went to
"Tate Tracks" for the Tate Modern Museum, by Fallon London. Phew, that was close. I'm so glad it won. They asked musicians to come to the museum, pick a piece and write a song about it. In order to hear the music, you had to go to the museum and stand in front of the piece. The important thing is that people who came were truly interested, truly compelled, and exactly the target. No sweepstakes, no tv commercials, just Compelling Content at its best.
FYI: Volume 1, Volume 2