Aweirds.

There's no award like this award. Rowan and Martin's "Flying Fickle Finger of Fate." 
(My birthday gift from my wife yesterday.)

--

With the shuttering of DDB by its owner, Omnicom, last week (a shuttering accompanied by the shuddering of an entire industry) a lot of people have pointed out the purported irony that an agency that won the Cannes Network of the Year both in 2023 and 2025 should be closed so soon after winning such acclaim.

I've yet to see anyone question the value of awards shows. What they award, what they measure, what they mean and if they're an at-all viable way of judging the business value of an ad agency, which is the only criterion on which an ad agency should be assessed.

Anyone who brings the smallest portion of 'show me' to the awards-show-industrial complex would question DDB's victories. Just like would question the viability--even the non-fiction-ness of these items below.

Since 2015, WPP's market cap was decreased by more than 85-percent. They were worth $31B in 2015. They are worth $4B today.

That is not what you would call, in an ordered-universe, 'award-winning.' Nevertheless, the charade persists that these things count for something. 

Again, if you look at the chest-beating around the awards reputedly won, and the performance of the entities in question, you MUST question what we as an industry are doing--how we're evaluating ourselves and our meaning.

Somehow it all brings to my mind this quotation often attributed to Albert Einstein.

In other words, if the measurement is wrong, the results the measurement reveals will be faulty.

Not to long ago, I saw somewhere (I didn't screen shot it) that an Emmy award was given to a dry cleaner or something like that. It made me question the meaning of the Emmy if those in industries extremely tangential to the TV industry can win one.

With five minutes of research I found out that in 1949, the organization behind the Emmy awarded just six awards. Last year, they gave 51-times that number, 306 awards.

I also found out this, which makes me, someone who thinks about 98.92384-percent of awards are absolutely stupid believe that 98.978986-percent of awards are absolutely stupid.

My guess is the advertising networks spend more on winning awards than they do on creative bonuses, training, office decor, retention and diversity efforts, combined. Paying to win is about as craven as a system gets. It reminds me of the old adage I've heard from people who play golf, "You drive for show, you putt for dough." 

Awards are for show, thinking is for dough.  And there ain't any real brand guidance anymore. Just stunts.

I look at the whole thing this way.

Imagine eating the worst hamburger you ever ate. 

Frozen pink slime full of gristle, bone and chopped cow anus. 

Imagine eating that and finding out it won an award for "hamburger served on the sesame-seed bun with the most sesame seeds." The most seeds. And a diamond-award. The CEO accepted the award in France. Meanwhile, the people serving the burger hate their jobs. The restaurants owned by the chain were filthy and the waits were long. The chain itself was bleeding money.

But, award-winning.

You have question what we're doing.

Why we believe it.

Why we keep believing it.

Even when it kills us.