While we’re on the op-ed kick, let’s pass the mic briefly to Scott Briskman, currently chief creative officer at our monthly, San Francisco-based contributor Extractable who’s also spent time as a senior creative at the likes of Digitaria/JWT and Agency.com. The question’s raised above. Let’s see what the answer is below.

We all work hard to deliver creative solutions that are compelling and useful. Successfully clearing the hurdles along the way of a project are rewarded by seeing an idea come to life and the positive results it generates.  The icing on top is when colleagues take the time to acknowledge our efforts with awards.

Question is, do the awards we win have a purpose beyond making us feel good?

It’s easy to be cynical about it — there are so many shows, so many categories, so many media types.

Don’t go there.

Realize that smart, strong creative execution is necessary for brands to grow and stay ahead of the competition. It’s not just the strategy and the user experience that will affect people. It’s the way people perceive your brand. Visuals must be married with the right words, the right content and displayed in such a way that people are excited.  And with all the stimulation that society is bombarded with today, it’s tough to get it just right, especially with all the varying audiences we’re aiming to please.

So no matter how smart the strategy is, how efficient the media plan is, or how great the technology can be…  if the creative falls flat it’s all for naught. Great creative is what generates an emotional response.  Great creative is what compels action.

So, do awards really matter?  I say, yes, more than ever because they point us to examples where creativity worked.  And, it’s important to have outlets that still celebrate it.

Congratulations to all you lucky award winners this year.  Keep up the good work.

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In case you’re not attending or could care less about the 2013 CLIOs on May 15 at the Museum of Natural History in NYC, here’s a quick breakdown for you. A jury including W+K Entertainment president Bill Davenport and Wunderman EVP/chief creative officer Nick Moore have decided to bestow the award show’s highest accolade to the brands/agencies/people below. See if you agree or disagree and go here for more information.

·       Hall of Fame, Design: Turner Duckworth, San Francisco

·       Hall of Fame, Film & Print: DDB New York

·       Hall of Fame, Audio: The Richards Group, Dallas

·       Agency of the Year: Marcel Worldwide, Paris

·       Agency Network of the Year: Ogilvy & Mather, New York

·       Production Company of the Year: Biscuit Filmworks, Los Angeles

·       Advertiser of the Year: Google

·       Brand Icon: Coca-Cola

·       Lifetime Achievement: George Lois

·       Honorary CLIO: will.i.am & Patricia Field

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Today, the social network has unveiled the winners of its second annual Facebook Studio Awards, which honors the ad industry and its various socially inclined campaigns from the last year. Among those making the grade this year, as chosen by a jury that included familiar names from the biz such as Colleen DeCourcy, Nick Law, Jeff Benjamin, Tor Myhren and Rob Reilly, are Draftfcb and 360i, which earned the top Blue Award for their “Daily Twist” work for Oreo. Other winners include R/GA, which made the list twice, once for Nike work and the other for the intriguing “One Copy Song”Facebook app the agency developed for Swedish rapper, Adam Tensta, a year ago (it’s also up for a Webby this year).

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It’s almost that time again to roll out the five-word speeches as the folks behind the Webbys have announced the nominees for their 17th annual event (promo above), which will be broadcast online on May 22  while host and actual venue for the event will be announced next week.

Along with the usual suspects like Nike (which leads the pack with 17 nods), Google, FunnyorDie and Mashable as well as celebs ranging from Tom Hanks to Lena Dunham, the agency world once again gets plenty of kudos in this year’s installment. Among the notables include McCann Melbourne, which is up for a Webby in the Viral category for “Dumb Ways to Die”, Toronto’s john st., which is up for an award in the “Best Copywriting” category for its “Buyral” clip (below), and 72andSunny, which has earned a nod in Integrated Campaigns category for its Call of Duty work. As is the norm, you can weigh in via the People’s Voice Awards, which you can vote on until April 25.  Check out the full list of nominees here.

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With the 92nd ADC Awards Gala now in the books (winners list here), we bring our our final entry from the event courtesy of the Art Directors Club’s director of content + communications, Brianna Graves. As she boards the plane back home, she managed fill us in with this brief, somewhat gushing on-the-scene recap.

One would have been hard pressed last night to forcibly wipe the grins off the faces of the attendees of the ADC 92nd Annual Awards Gala.

The majesty of the Frank Gehry-designed New World Center, home of the New World Symphony, cast a magic spell from the moment that guests approached the red carpet outside (albeit, in a drenching downpour and tornado warning), then had their photo taken inside before enjoying cocktails, light hors d’oeuvres and a little mixing and mingling prior to the Gala. The mood was lit around the New World Center Atrium by ADC partner Float4 Interactive, who covered the screens above with light and color.

Inside the main performance hall was no less stunning. The venue itself, with incredible sound, performance and lighting capabilities, set the tone of the evening. But when ADC Executive Director Ignacio Oreamuno took the stage to welcome his guests not only to the 92nd Annual Awards, but also to a new era, a new standard and a new future of the Art Directors Club and its Annual Awards, the tone of the evening was solidified. ADC was presenting nothing but the best.

Ariel Adkins, ADC membership associate and author of Artfully Awear, dazzled the stage as the Pantone trophy girl. She accomplished a record number of costume changes designed with a distinct Pantone color in mind, and synced with a complete relighting of the stage and performance hall designed by Float4.

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It’s hard to define a pinnacle moment of Day Two of the ADC 92^nd Annual Awards + Festival of Art and Craft in Advertising and Design simply because the energy remained so high throughout the day.

Rafaël Rozendaal surprised attendees early in the first of the two morning workshops with a presentation of work that contrasts his quiet demeanor with its absolutely outstanding ingenuity and reasoning. Rozendaal is the type of man so ahead of his time that we will all look back on this Festival from our rocking chairs in our nursing homes some day, and marvel that we hung out with and learned from Rozendaal in Miami Beach in 2013.

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As many of you probably know, the Art Directors Club decided to take its hardware, talents, what have you from New York City to South Beach for its 92nd Awards Show. So, in case you missed lingering around the ADC Gallery in Chelsea, we have some first-person perspective from the event in warmer climates courtesy of the organization’s director of content & communications, Brianna Graves, who offers her recap of one particular moment that she dubs “Stageside Craft.” Recap of Day 1 in video form above. 

A could-have-been disappointment turned into one of the most special moments of the first day of the inaugural ADC 92nd Annual Awards + Festival of Art and Craft in Advertising and Design. With the day’s workshops wrapped and the drinks in the afternoon poolside Creative Register Cabana consumed, all Festival attendees headed for the Private Pool + Lawn at W South Beach to kick back and absorb the inspiration of Day One at the Opening Night Pool Party presented by Martin Guitar.

An open bar provided unlimited cool drinks to get people loosened up to mingle, and a line grew around the pool for the opportunity to create a signature pasta dish. The lawn was packed with colorful, clearly Miami Beach-ready guests, as the ADC’s executive director Ignacio Oreamuno [ed: he explains the move to Miami here] took the stage to introduce musician Keaton Simons. The crowd fell silent. But something wasn’t right. A venue-imposed noise restriction made it challenging, but not impossible, to hear Oreamuno’s voice across the lawn. But a not-so-gentle ocean breeze blowing off the sands of South Beach and straight into the microphone finished the job, and barely a word or a strum from Simons’ guitar could be heard as he began his set.

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We should start by noting that it was admittedly hard to resist posting about this since we are briefly mentioned and all. Hell, who couldn’t use a mid-day ego boost? Besides the name-check, though, we were somewhat intrigued by this lengthy, perhaps Being John Malkovich-inspired self-promo for the Pittsburgh Advertising Federation’s 2013 ADDYs, which took place last Friday (recap here).

In a clip that we say tops whatever the Dallas ADDYs came up with this year, we learn what a creative’s mind looks like when he or she is out of ideas, a barren wasteland of cliches, sex toys and worries about being called a “hack” (which, unfortunately, is quite a familiar term in these parts). The only downside to this clip, penned by OgilvyAction copywriter Jacob Bofferding, is the protagonist being the ultimate hipster creative cliche, which we’ve seen way too many times this year thanks to the deluge of 72andSunny-created Samsung Galaxy spots. Other than that, we can think of worse ways to kill a few minutes.

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The Association of Independent Commercial Producers unveiled it’s campaign for the 2013 AICP Show and AICP Next Awards with a few spots that resemble fake interstitials from a sci-fi movie most likely directed by James Cameron. The machines aren’t taking over, but we do have EureeCorp, the make-believe company with a line of products like the Idea Orb, which can transmit award-winning ideas to your brain as you sleep.

If the Idea Orb doesn’t inspire collusion, there’s always the Centaurus 3000, a computer full of magical software and algorithms that produces a scent where you “can waft in the ideas of the future.” Okay, the machines might be taking over, and those machines really like detached body parts.

This AICP campaign doesn’t have as much bite as some of their previous, more carnivorous work, but success can’t always be duplicated. After all, innovation has no formula. Credits and the Centaurus 3000 spot after the jump.

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Is it that time already? Well, the folks behind non-profit org TED have announced this year’s list of winners for its annual “Ads Worth Spreading” challenge. How do they measure up to previous winners like Willie & Chipotle’s “Back to the Start?” Well, we’ll let you be the judge, but yes, Y&R NY’s “Annie” ad for Dell (below) as well as a couple of Super Bowl spots made the grade this time around including the Dodge Ram “Farmer” SBXLVII entry and Coca-Cola’s “Security Cameras” effort.

According to the TED camp, to find the work, they briefed six teams of two–one TED speaker paired with one “rising star from the advertising industry”–to seek out work in each category. In turn, TED’s 25 “Advocates,” which is not a Scientology phrase as far as we know but are those who are actual industry leaders in advertising, production, curation and film,” twisted arms and nominated across all categories such as  Talk, Social Good, Creative Wonder and Brand Bravery. See full winners list here.

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Grammys. Oscars. MTV Music Video Awards. Cassies. Some award shows are more popular than others, but at the end of the day, they are all irrelevant except to those who win. Instead of asking nominees to cover up their curves, as was protocol at this year’s Grammys, the best approach is to let it all hang out with some good old fashioned self-deprecation.

Here are three clever promos created by Toronto agency john st., which introduced us to “Buyral” not too long ago, for the 2013 Cassie Awards, which apparently have been billed by the parties involved as the Canadian Effies. If nobody else cares about your commercials, at least you can add a trivial trophy to the banner of the agency website only clients will know about. I’ll leave you to the other two spots and the credits after the jump before the imaginary orchestra cuts me off.

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For the sixth consecutive year, TBWA\Chiat\Day L.A. is behind the ad campaign for CBS’ telecast of the Grammys, which airs on Feb. 10.

The new campaign, titled “#TheWorldIsListening” (because all campaigns require hashtags now), continues on the The Recording Academy’s quest to highlight somewhat younger musicians than in years past. Starting in 2011, when the Grammys shocked the country by bestowing the coveted Album of the Year award on Canadian indie band Arcade Fire, the awards show has benefited immensely in TV ratings by targeting a younger audience. That’s probably why in the first 60-second spot, “Anthem,” we get narration by Rihanna Cat Power and cameos from Skrillex, Taylor Swift, and the newly christened Snoop Lion.

Of the trio of new spots, the real winner is the above 30-second piece featuring blues-rock duo The Black Keys with narration by New Orleans blues legend, Dr. John. The Black Keys’ newest album, El Camino, is nominated for the prestigious Album of the Year award this time around. Considering it’s probably the Black Keys’ worst (as Arcade Fire’s worst, The Suburbs took home the award in 2011), it’s my odds-on-favorite to win big in 2013.

The campaign also features a web component dubbed the Grammy Amplifier, a something that a statement from Chiat says “has the potential to become a new platform for social musical discovery.” Watch one more spot starring Rihanna and view credits after the jump.

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As a midday interlude, we give you this latest round of teasers hyping the 2013 Dallas ADDY awards, which are basically a month away. Following up on the Richards Group-created promo from December, which introduced us to this year’s obviously silly “Trade your baby for a trophy” theme, the ADDY gang presents the third and fourth installments with, yes, babies still in tow. As we remember the time when the AAF unveiled far better promos to hype their annual event, we’re also feeling increasingly sorry for the little ones in this year’s batch. Ah well, consider it a quick lunchtime time-killer.

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Those ad-obsessed folks at the American Advertising Federation are back with another silly call-for-entries campaign for the Dallas ADDYs, using this tagline for the 2013 awards: “Trade Your Baby for a Trophy.” Yep, you read it correctly, but as you see in the video above and on the 2013 Dallas ADDYs site, the little tikes are being used as an analogy for ideas. Very clever. Hometown agency The Richards Group was behind the clip above, which to be honest pales in comparison to the absurd promos that wrapped up the 2012 awards. While this may not necessarily light a fire to enter, let us tell you that you only have until tomorrow, Dec. 12, to send your “idea baby” and make deadline. Godspeed.

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The tipster who sent word of this before we received the official news dubbed it “the most important award show.” Har har, but sarcasm aside, the Art Directors Club has indeed announced the winners of its latest Tomorrow Awards, a prize that’s apparently so important that it needs to be handed out biannually. Anyhow, at a ceremony in Sao Paulo last night, Fall ’12 Tomorrows were handed out to five winners in all including R/GA for “One Copy Song ” (not a bad choice) and Google Creative Labs’ collab with Tate Modern dubbed “This Exquisite Forest.” Check out the Fall 2012 Tomorrow winners showcase here, and if you’ve got 12 minutes to spare to view some behind-the-scenes Tomorrow action including a look at the show’s also rans, see below.

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