You like us! You really like us!

I have to confess that I like winning. I don’t think I’m a Type A personality, but, from a pure business perspective, I like winning two things: new business and awards. Anyone who says otherwise is a liar.

But, for now, let’s just talk about awards. My father was in sales, so his award was he reward. If he landed a sale, he got a commission. He used to bring home plaques with his name on them and he’d hang them up in our house. He was one of the top sales guys in his company in the country. As a kid, I don’t think I appreciated it, but now, I think that’s pretty cool.

From Top to Bottom

In our business, there are a awards that we value differently. At the top is the Clios Awards. Admittedly, I’ve never even sniffed one (read: I don’t know anyone who has won one), but I hear it’s pretty sweet. Almost as high is the Cannes Gold Lion. Again, I couldn’t tell you what it smelled like if I had the nose of a bloodhound. Next is the One Show Gold Pencil. To get an honorable mention in the One Show Annual is an honor. When you bring home a pencil, it means you’re one of the best. On a national level, you have other awards including the Telly Awards. If you have cash, a pulse, your work doesn’t suck, you can win a Telly.

Home Grown

There are several awards worth winning locally. Creatively, the toughest one to win is the Art Director’s Club of Houston (ADCH). While not a strong club organizationally, ADCH “blocks” have been fairly elusive for us. When you win one, you’ve done something REALLY well. A notch below that is the Addy’s from the American Advertising Federation. Locally, we’ve done okay having won a few gold and a District win. We enter these awards for recruiting reasons. Good creatives want to work for firms where good creative is done.

Marketing Based Upon Results

On the marketing front, there are two key awards shows: The Crystal Awards from the American Marketing Association and the Lantern Awards from the Business Marketers Association. Both are the most difficult to enter because you have to write case studies for each. We like these two especially because they play into our core marketing strength and are mostly based upon results. Each award has a story to tell and we like to tell it.

And I just can’t deny the fact that You LIKE us! You REALLY, REALLY like us!

But the essence of awards is validation. We like the fact that the creative awards validate the fact that we are creative. That’s our business–our ability to differentiate our clients in an engaging, unique way. The marketing awards validate the results we deliver to clients. They seem to enjoy that.

So when you come to our offices, you’ll see a lot of chrome, crystal and glass. But all of them are precious medals. That is, until we run out of space.

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