Why Strive for Awards?

Advertising isn’t like any other industry.

Awards in most jobs are few and far between, and when they are granted, they are rare, momentous things.

In advertising they are milestones.

In my years of writing I have had a grand total of 3 emails from clients saying how they liked my copy or ideas.

I imagine it is a lot like being a locksmith, or a chimneysweep, or a dentist.

You are invisible and forgotten unless something is wrong. And you almost never get praised for a job well done.

That is the hardest part about being a copywriter actually, the persistent negativity.

It is one of the most ironic things about advertising. Here is an industry filled with all these happy, fun and youthful people sparking up happy, fun and youthful ideas all day long - only to have them systematically destroyed.

You need really thick skin to do this job.

So how do you keep yourself from going mad? You strive for award-quality work, constantly.

Mind you, very few of these award-worthy ideas ever get published.

I’ve seen this in every agency I’ve worked at. I’ve seen some brilliant ideas, but they just weren’t right, just then, for that particular client, or brief.

They end up the Idea Graveyard, to hopefully be exhumed one day for another shot in this life.

So don’t get me wrong, when I say I’m shooting for a Lion, it isn’t like I’m downplaying the significance of it all.

Quite the opposite.

I think it’s the most worthwhile pursuit of my career at this moment.