So last week AIMIA (Australia’s leading digital industry body) announced the finalists for their 16th awards, perceived by many as the most illustrious in the industry. I’ve always considered industry awards to be a bit of a wank, proving only what a narcissistic bunch we marketers truly are. But nevertheless, I was keen to head on over there to view the work judged to be the best our country had to offer. And my initial reaction? Disappointment. Not in the quality of work selected, as much of it is excellent at face value. But therein also lies the problem. Face value. It seems as if it’s all we’re judging upon here. Flashturbation was a word that quickly came to mind when viewing some of the nominees. Which left me wondering… why aren’t our premier awards based upon actual results rather than creative execution? This is not advertising. Digital is THE accountable medium right? So shouldn’t we practice what we preach and reward work based upon real tangible outcomes…?
If you walked into any digital marketing pitch today, I’d bet that 10 out of 10 would emphasise accountability as a core theme (if not the primary theme). It’s the ace in our sleeve and what we’ve built our industry upon. Heck, I’ve seen John Butterworth (CEO of AIMIA) speak on a number of occasions and accountability has been has been a strong theme within AIMIA’s own propaganda.
So if we as an industry sell ourself based upon accountability, why is it that we mimic the traditional advertising awards structure by rewarding creativity over real results? Only one of the 25 AIMIA awards places any real emphasis on the actual outcome (The Effectiveness Award). The remainder are judged on a set of criteria heavily weighted towards elements such as design, visual impact and technical expertise.
Shouldn’t it be the other way around?!? Shouldn’t we have one creative award, with the remainder based upon tangible results?
Don’t get me wrong. Amongst the nominees there are some wonderfully creative sites that utilise digital technologies to deliver a key message. A few of my favourites are:
- ABC Black Saturday site: The ABC produced a stunning micro site to commemorate the Black Saturday bushfires. A mixture of photo, audio, video and map content is used highly effectively to retell over 200 chilling stories. It’s almost impossible not to become immersed in this site.
- FBI Radio’s Ask Richard campaign: Like Tourism Qld’s ‘Best Job’ campaign, this beautifully cheeky stunt is probably closer to PR than digital. But nevertheless, it shows how extraordinary things can be achieved with the most basic of digital tools (thereby making a mockery of AIMIA’s criteria relating to design, visuals & technical innovation).
- Greenpeace’s Action-Pact campaign: Follows a strong tradition of Australian not-for-profits using digital channels successfully to create awareness and support for a specific cause.
What I like best about these campaigns is that they utilise the digital channel to enhance a strong message. They don’t introduce interactive elements for the sake of “creativity/user engagement”. They use appropriate technologies for their message, and nothing more.
Conversely, there are clearly a number of AIMIA nominees who in my opinion are guilty of creativity for the sake of creativity:
- The Shapeshifter site: I couldn’t even figure out what to do here to begin with. I’m not sure how this could have passed through the usability criteria with core navigation hidden from users? It took me minutes to understand how to use this page.
- 26000 vodka: I was baffled by this site. Key messages were hard to find and I’m still struggling to understand the purpose of the questions users are asked to answer. Flashturbation.
- Tic Tac iPhone App: Quite possibly the most inane iPhone app ever. Its sole purpose is to allow you to “shake” a virtual packet of Tic Tacs. This seems to be taking advantage of the iPhone’s motion sensor purely for the sake of it. I can’t see what possible business objective this may fulfill.
Isn’t it time we grew up and moved beyond rewarding the “best” creative idea? We all know it doesn’t necessarily lead to the best outcome for the client. How many times have you laughed at a TV ad, yet failed to recall the product/brand? The same goes for the web. I was reading Capgemini’s Cars Online 09/10 Report just yesterday and it revealed dynamic graphics to be amongst the least important online features for consumers when buying a car. And that’s for the auto industry – one of the highest involvement industries on the planet, where product aesthetics contribute significantly to purchase decisions. If consumers don’t care about dynamic graphics and interactivity when browsing for auto information, are they really going to be impressed by them for other lower involvement products?
Advertising (presumably) rewards creativity because they can’t measure results. At least not accurately. But we can… as we’ve been telling anyone who will listen for over a decade. The way I see it, if you want the glory and prestige of industry awards in the digital arena, you should put your money where your mouth is and reveal the real results.
Until we do, I’m afraid that our industry is a walking contradiction.
{ 1 trackback }
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
suits suck.
James
Thanks very much for taking the time to review and comment on this years AIMIA Award Finalists.
Your post has prompted quite a bit of discussion which is great and I thought it worthwhile responding and (hopefully) addressing some of your concerns.
This is the fifth year I’ve overseen the judging process as an independent observer and co-ordinator so I thought it worthwhile sharing with you some of that experience and behind-the-scenes explanation of the process.
You’ve made some good points and while the AIMIA Awards are the oldest and most prestigious awards in the digital space we’re always looking to improve and welcome comments and suggestions.
I agree with your suggestion the Awards are about really about recognising excellence in the broad and growing sphere Digital Media and Services not only about Advertising. Over the past five years, Digital has had huge growth traction and visibility in the Australian Advertising Agency community – and it now represents a multibillion advertising media but equally many other sectors such as Education, Financial Services, Retail and Publishing and Entertainment who also continue to grow and innovate in their use of Digital. And these sectors as well as others are also all equally well represented in the AIMIA Awards.
The AIMIA awards are about creativity you’re right but equally they’re about effectiveness. The AIMIA Awards are determined by the views of over 100 Independent Industry Experts carefully assessing each work on seven separate criteria not simply creativity. These are Fitness for purpose, Design innovation, Visual impact and Aesthetics, Technical expertise, Conformance to W3C Standards, Usability and Accessibility and Special characteristics. And effectiveness is part of all of these.
Judging the AIMIA awards is an absolutely huge job – believe me! – involving many thousands of hours of work. It’s also one we take very seriously – each of the judges thousands of individual scores (this year over 20,000 data points) are recorded then aggregated and “normalised” in a similar process used by the Olympics to judge Diving and Gymnastics events designed and verified with help from Professor George Cooney, who oversees the Higher School Certificate scaling in New South Wales. And I’m absolutely confident it produces a true assessment of what the industry consider to be the best work of the year produced in Australia. Also, this year, for the first time, we’re also introducing a peoples choice award.
The first output of the AIMIA Awards process is the release of the finalists list which is not all nominated works but a small subset of all entries submitted for consideration that the judges via the above process have deemed exceptional:
• 16th AIMIA Awards Finalists http://www.aimia.com.au/i-cms?page=1.36.6636.6640
Then from this list the winners in each category are determined again using the same rigorous process. The winners, of course, will be announced at the Gala AIMIA Awards night themselves this year in Melbourne on Friday 5th March.
I’d welcome any further comments or suggestions either via this blog or directly.
best regards,
Paul McCarthy
Chair of Judging
16th Annual AIMIA Awards
http://www.aimia.com.au/awards/
hi james,
agree to a point, ignoring accountability is stupid, but i think creative is still hugely important – underestimated by the industry. one of the biggest barriers i see to driving big branding spend online is the client’s perception that online (display mainly) can’t deliver the creative flexibility and emotional involvement to really engage an audience like you can with TV … may or may not be correct, but it is a big thing for clients. so an industry showcase of the best in creativity, trying to excite clients about the possibilities of digital can help overcome that, can encourage creatives to try and push the barriers even further. but at the same time, yeah, dumb not to play to our strengths – accountability
j
@Paul – Thanks for taking the time to leave a detailed response. It is appreciated and helps to give insight into the behind-the-scenes process.
I’m sure your rigourous process is doing a good job of identifying the work the industry considers to be the best. I guess my challenge is to extend beyond this internal focus. Marketers have a tendency to admire the “cool” rather than the “effective”. Let’s reward the work that client’s think is best, rather than the “industry”. How? By laying the data on the table. By proving the success of the campaign with real metrics that are publicly accessible.
That’s my challenge. I understand it isn’t easy to achieve this. Organisations are hesitant to release real data. But I don’t think it’s too much to ask for the positive PR.
@Jonathon – Don’t get me wrong. Creative is hugely important to the success of a marketing campaign/message. However, I do think there’s an overemphasis on creative in AIMIA’s awards criteria, which is reflected in their nominees.
LOL @ the flashturbation… I will definitely use that for years to come!
PS. Great article too. Love your work.
Hey just wanted to give you a brief heads up and let you know
a few of the pictures aren’t loading correctly. I’m not sure why but I
think its a linking issue. I’ve tried it in two different internet browsers and both show the same results.