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The importance and relevancy of awards to the advertising industry came to the fore last month when Publicis announced that it would not be taking part in Cannes next year. Whilst the awards themselves have never been a driving factor for us at The Mission Control Communications, they do serve a purpose.

Firstly – advertising awards are not just for the agencies. Campaigns are created in partnership with clients, so any awards or accolades won reflect a relationship that is working.

Secondly, this is something that Wieden+Kennedy touched upon in an article last month, but awards serve as an incentive for the new bloods. Most senior bodies within agencies will have had the opportunity to collect their share of awards, so why should we deny new creatives the same opportunity.

Whilst we don’t condone the production of work just to win awards as has been known to happen in some parts of the world, we do think that effective work deserves to be recognised and celebrated – especially when you consider how much goes into it.

We’d also be naïve to think that clients don’t look at the awards agencies have won when selecting a new shop. There’s also a wealth of training and experience that can be gained from the awarding bodies, with D&AD for example running workshops throughout the year covering all of the disciplines that go into our industry.

These workshops, as we know first-hand, are a great opportunity to offer your people access to new ways of thinking, working and looking at the world around them. The investment in this sort of training also has significant benefit for the agency in that it motivates team members to share their experiences when then return to the studio. The skills picked up are also then naturally fed into the work being produced for clients – thus raising the standard of work being created and outputted.

We make a point of ensuring that all of our people have access to world class training and that every team member is part of at least one project that is being entered into the International awards circuit every year. Just as importantly, when work is entered into the awards, we ensure that the client teams involved in its creation are also credited.

Mission Accomplished!