If the “award-winning work” are questionable, they deserved to be attacked by anyone and everyone.

No. Lots of people who have awards hate awards

I’ve won a bunch of awards and literally threw them in the trash about 6-7 years ago. The only ones I kept was my D&AD yellow pencils, which still is credible to me to some degree. Most award shows are a complete joke at this point, and I feel bad for the people who live and breathe for them. What a way to live your life.

Want some gold lions, cubes, clios, you name it? Check your local Goodwill.

Prefacing your comment with “no hate” doesn’t actually mitigate the negative implication of your post. Also, what people seem to be “attacking” is the fraud piece not the “award winning” piece.

If they're attaching real work for real clients, yes they're haters and are probably just jealous.

If they're attacking fake, scam, cringe, or work clearly designed as awards bait, that's fine and have at 'er.

Me and my partner always say an award would be nice in terms of career progression but they seem a bit of a sham these days. Not all but some are questionable.

I see this question a lot. It really boils down to are awards worth the effort. It’s a hard question to answer definitively. But in my opinion - and what I’ve assumed throughout my career — the answer is a (complicated) yes. I would agree the award show circuit has gone haywire. And the selection of winning work has become political and dubious. However. I don’t think anyone gets into creative advertising to brag about how many units of toilet paper they sold. We want to make great, eye-catching work that makes people feel something. To do that — you need to figure out how to hold yourself to a certain standard. Awards give us all a barometer. So like them or hate them — I believe they serve a motivating purpose. And I don’t believe on hating on winners. Debate them? Discuss them? Dissect them? With colleagues and (the good) clients? Sure. But publicly tearing down work feels like a waste of creative energy to me. Especially since even the worst work usually rises to that certain special standard.

They won’t attack if you get an MBA

I went most of my career not really caring about awards. Always thought they were kinda BS. But eventually, I realized I had to play the game—if you completely ignore awards, the ceiling stays low and the world gets small. Now I go all in and compete at the highest level in any festival. But truth be told, I still think the whole thing’s kinda ridiculous most of the times. Especially some people 🙄

The schlocky, purpose-driven work that certain agencies poop out every year in blatant attempts to win is very gross to me. (And I can’t believe juries are still awarding it.) If the creatives or agencies actually cared about a particular cause, wouldn’t they stick to one or two organizations every year? But they don’t. They take their awards and move on

I’ve been in rooms for global creative reviews, and you’ll see particular, award-minded ECDs and CCOs present a pile of campaigns their office has in the pipeline: this one’s for blind people, this one’s for breast cancer, this one’s for trans acceptance, this one’s for the deaf…

We all know it. The work is only made for awards. It isn’t even advertising, it’s some other stupid thing. But agencies spend massive cash to make it, and that stuff is most of what wins at Cannes

Starting off a post with “no hate” and then *immediately* talking shit about people is my favorite brand of passive aggressive post on this app.

There’s a genuine critique and then there’s people who are bitter or just trying to grift as as cringe LinkedIn “thought leader” or whatever. There’s a thread here about something that won and while there were a few good points about PR-driven media quote-pulls (award shows need to make rules about this trick), the rest was super nitpicky and schizorambling about Brazillians.

People are upset with the fraud part — or at least, this is how I feel. It’s impossible to compete with someone who already starts in front. I feel really bad to work in a place that puts so much into fake work like this. Please, let’s stop this. Let’s try to do real work, with real results, and if we win less awards, it’s okay. And also, let’s not keep using the excuse “everyone is doing it” anymore.
PS: Are the awards connected with bonuses or is just for ego?

Not necessarily, no.

I don’t think the attacks are unwarranted. My issue is when there are groups of creatives generating award-bait within agencies and seem to be uninterested in the grind that MOST of the company has to go through to get out just barely decent stuff. It’s a harder fight that has no glory, and then you have to watch executives in resort wear raising glasses on an international boondoggle for what is CLEARLY pro-bono work, it stings all the more. So, if someone calls out Cannes for being douchey AF, I think it’s 100% justified… and obvious really.

lol no. Attacking other award work is a crucial part of the award game.

This assumes awards are a meritocracy. They are not. To get awards you have to be given the opportunity to work on high-profile accounts with clients who have the scope, budget and appetite to recognize and produce award-winning creative. Plenty of great creatives never have this chance, because they aren’t on the radar/favored by the right people in leadership on those accounts. If you’re a woman or person of color, it will always be an uphill battle to get those opportunities. It is 80% politics and opportunity. This has been the case at every agency I’ve worked for.

And I say this as a person who has won awards.