Louis B. Mayer was head of MGM (Metro Goldwyn Mayer) in 1927.
He was worried about the trend towards unions, if it took hold in the film industry it could cause real problems.
He’d have to negotiate contract disputes with all sorts of different groups: technicians, directors, actors, producers, writers, caterers, carpenters, painters, drivers, security staff; movie-making would become a nightmare.
So he created a single organisation to represent everyone involved in making films.
He called it the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, he wanted it to sound grand so that all these groups would feel proud to join.
And to give it added credibility he wanted it to showcase the highest standards, so he created an award scheme to celebrate the best the industry could produce.
Today we know it as The Oscars, the peak of all the entertainment awards.
But it’s worth remembering the original purpose.
In an interview much later, Louis B. Mayer commented on the creation of the Oscars: “I found that the best way to handle [filmmakers] was to hang medals all over them … If I got them cups and awards, they’d kill themselves to produce what I wanted. That’s why the Academy Award was created.”
So the Oscars were created largely to manipulate creative types.
It’s worth remembering those words when we think about advertising awards.
Goodhart’s Law states that “When a measurement becomes a target it ceases to have any use as a measurement.”
In other words, awards begin as a recognition of great work but gradually the purpose morphs into simply winning the award, it’s no longer about doing great work.
For instance, we’ve all sat on juries where everyone knows the award is being given to something that hasn’t actually run, but we accept it.
In fact, there’s even an award-scheme specially for work that hasn’t run: The Chip Shop Awards.
One of my heroes, George Lois, said, “Don’t show me your drawerful of great roughs, if it don’t run it ain’t advertising.”
But now the whole purpose of awards is the opposite of that.
Now the purpose is simply to win the award by any means possible.
Take D&AD, once it was the most prestigious of all the award schemes.
It was originally for creatives by creatives, and the award itself wasn’t the point.
The original point was that creatives in London were jealous of the New York Art Directors’ Association.
Each year, NYAD had an annual of the best work, and next to each ad was the name of the copywriter and art director who did it.
That was the original idea of D&AD, creatives wanted an annual with their names shown next to their work.
Consequently, the D&AD award wasn’t a pompous gold statuette like all the other awards: gold lions, or gold globes, or gold arrows, or gold mannequins.
The D&AD award was a stubby little yellow pencil.
It was anti-establishment, much cooler and much more creative than all the other flashy awards: Cannes, Clio, Andy, British TV, Eurobest, whatever.
The little stubby yellow pencil stood out simply because it wasn’t gold, like all the rest.
That was the point, it was different, but D&AD isn’t like that anymore.
Like all measurements it became a target.
Now D&AD is big business, there are five different colour pencils, beside yellow there’s: black, white, grey, and brown.
Last year they gave away 652 of these new pencils, judged by 300 judges from 47 different countries.
So D&AD has become another glitzy award scheme like all the rest.
The pinnacle of the D&AD awards each year is the President’s award, but it’s not a traditional, little stubby wooden pencil.
It’s not anti-establishment anymore, now it’s a shiny gold pencil.
Target v Measurement – D&AD is the result of inequality. During the 1970s in Asia, MNCs would hire a foreigner as Creative Director. Not only did they receive huge salaries, their perks were even bigger: huge bungalows previously occupied by senior British officers, free country club membership, free education for their kids and a trip back home for the entire family on 1st class and not on Aeroflot.
It would’ve been fine if these CDs were luminaries but many were quite crappy. And some drunk.
The politics of it meant locals could never become a CD however good he was. Because the current foreign CD would recommend his countryman when it was time for a new CD. The only way locals could go up the greasy pole was by winning awards. Ideally more awards than the CD who was too busy enjoying drinks at the cricket clubs. Of course strictly speaking to win an award, the ad has to run. But how does it ever see light of day if the foreign CD keeps rejecting good ideas? The only way to show that the ideas were any bloody good was to take an idea a foreign CD rejected and quietly enter it in the awards. Since these were self-funded, the locals could only enter a very limited number of shows. D&AD and Cannes were both coveted. But even though D&AD was very expensive it was still cheaper than Cannes which charged in €. So D&AD it was. Plus D&AD has greater longevity – an annual. “Failure is an orphan, success has many parents” is especially true in Asian advertising agencies. When s local team miraculously wins an entry or pencil, the same foreign CD who rubbished the idea wants in. Sometimes they offer to reimburse the team. Or they just use the old network to have the organisers pencil in their names.