The APG awards wants YOU.
Because of its heritage in, well, account planning and the fact that account planners mostly reside in larger agencies, the APG awards has tended to be dominated by larger agencies.
But this need not be the case! Anyone can enter, and from any country, so if you have some good strategic, commercially driven thinking you are proud of, it's probably worth a crack.
[A little bird told me that they'd love to see more transmedia ideas. I'm just saying.]
Here are some other things they would like you to know:
The APG awards deadline is on the 1st June. We are seeking
non-traditional ad agency thinking - from anywhere! Read on for some answers to
some frequently asked questions....
(1) Do the Awards reward non-advertising
solutions?
We actively encourage papers concerning solutions that are non-traditional,
and last time we saw some fantastic examples. Tate Britain won for an idea which
was about the theming of tours (so more NPD than communications). Radio 1 won a
special prize for a digital tool called Musicubes. Orange won for creating a
piece of content with Frank Lampard that could be downloaded to your phone.
(2) Does my paper have to be for a big, well known campaign?
Not at all. Last time, although Sainsbury’s won the Grand Prix, there were
awards for niche campaigns: Gold for Tate Modern and Silver for the Learning
Channel. It is not to do with the size of the brand, but to do with the quality
of the thinking.
(3) What if all the thinking did not originate in my agency?
Sometimes an agency inherits an idea from another agency, and needs to fit
their solution around it. However, it might still be that your have made a
valuable strategic contribution. It might be, for example, that you do not take
credit for the macro strategy, but your contribution turned on a fascinating
channel insight. Or, it might be that you team up with the other agency to
create a paper that combines both of your contributions. We would really
encourage partnerships, especially given the way most agencies work is
increasingly collaborative. Last time, for example, Lucozade Hydroactive was
written by both M&C Saatchi and Fast Track. We would love to see more of
these in the future.
If you have not yet started on a paper, but would like to, do get going
soon! Unlike some other Awards, it really shouldn't take too long to get it
written, given that the thinking has already been done.
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So come and have a go if you think you are strategic enough, so to speak.
As far as I'm concerned, award shows should be weighted heavily towards 'non-traditional' [if by that we mean new kinds of stuff] work, because we should be using awards to encourage commercially successful and generally ambitious experimentation that will help drive the industry forward.
More on that tomorrow.