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How’s RGA for a CW?
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Best (non-agency) company to work at in Boston??
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You usually need client permission to submit work for awards.
Chief
I actually know a guy who cleaned out at Cannes with a personal project. He paid his own way and won a bunch of awards. But it was not client work.
Chief
Which idea? You always need to enter for a brand, no?
Chief
You could have a great idea, but if it it’s not getting press, your agency is not likely to put money into the awards.
Usually, agencies decide the few they will really champion and completely flood all the shows with them.
All of the award shows require client approval on submitting to shows. And the agency won’t want you going around them.
It’s also very expensive to submit to shows. You are looking at $2000 per category for the bigger shows. And if you aren’t flooding the categories, you aren’t putting yourself in the judges’ minds.
You also need a killer case study video. There are ineffectual or toxic ads that have cleaned up just because their case study was sick.
Chicago Not Chicago by EnergyBBDO was one of the most derided ad campaigns. HATED by the public.
But the international judges had no idea. The case study made it seem like a success.
Best bet is to just come up with your own personal project. And do your own PR by reaching out to the press with a nice press kit.
Reminds me, one of my agency’s ideas was bungled by a terrible PR department. They didn’t even include our idea in the release, so no one covered it. I begged to send out our own press release. But got shut down. So stupid.
If your idea gets a lot of press, sometimes your agency will pay to submit it for you (and claim they did it). A trade-off, but helpful as you will have the holding company pushing for you and influencing judges by promotion in the industry. And it’s not just you sending it out and hoping for the best.
This CD knows how to award
The next best thing you can do is try to gain some earned media from press. I’d reach out to a couple publications that might report on it, and pitch them on it
Chief
Sometimes clients have a gag order on agencies pursuing their own press. Careful here.