DM awards.

"My vodafone mailing got a Gold in the low-volume business to business category. Wicked!"

Some people in DM take awards very, very seriously.

Some people in DM say they hate awards and are passionately against them.

The first group have no soul.

The second group have no awards.

I'm not quite sure where I stand.

I've won a few awards (and I could have won more if my name had been on the motherfucking forms, but I'm not bitter). And I think it's quite a pleasant thing. You get a trip to New York, or a dinner at the Grosvenor. And you can get pissed and have a free meal. Your peers all speak well of you and your agency gives you a blow job.

All very enjoyable.

But I'm not sure that I can take these awards all that seriously. Above-the-line, I can just about understand. Who made the best film? Let's all judge. It's fairly straightforward and is a benchmark of excellence.

But when you throw results into the mix, the whole thing tends to get a bit fucked up. When you work in response, you don't really need a benchmark of excellence. You've already got one...the results.

Juding creativity in a results based industry is a funny one. Imagine a football comparison. Everton beat Man City 2-0, but Man City win because they played the nicest football. It's utterly absurd. Yet in DM it seems acceptable.

To compound the absurdity, it seems that most award winning creative mailpacks aren't even real. We won a Cannes Silver for a deskdrop a while back - that is, something that has never actually left the agency. You see awards for Hairdressing Salons or Dry Cleaners - those staple DM industries (!). So most of the time we are judging an industry that doesn't really exist.

Perhaps we are showcasing which agencies have the most talent. Or rather, who WOULD have the most talent if the kind of work they are doing ACTUALLY EXISTED IN THE REAL WORLD.

A nice code to live by, I suppose. But one which much render one's life more or less meaningless when you finally meet your maker.

Last year's DMA best of show was a mailing with Fuzzy Felt in it. Which strikes me as a bit retarded. A nice mailing sure. But I work in a job that considers fuzzy felt the height of our powers? Really? Okay. Just keep paying me and I'll keep my mouth shut.

All I'm trying to do here is raise the questions. I have no opinion. Sometimes award winning stuff has been brilliantly successful, in which case it does deserve the adoration.

But even then. How seriously do we take it?

I remember the DMA's 2001. Stephen Fry was presenting. He more or less called us a bunch of cunts and said we should be ashamed of what we do never mind award it. Stephen Fry is usually respected as a man of common sense. Was he so far out this time? Or does he just not understand the degree to which we struggle for our art?

Does it come back to this frustrated above-the-line mentality? We see that they have big awards ceremonies and we want them too?

Once on a train I saw a sign that said "Great North Eastern Trains - Gold Award for Sandwiches - British Train Awards 2003" or something. And it made me laugh. What a meaningless thing to award.

But then it struck me that it is no less absurd than winning "Best press insert" at the PM awards.

But for all of the stupidity of awards, I think they DO matter. Not because they have any merit in themselves. But more because they have the illusion of merit.

And percpetion, as we all know, is reality.

Awards mean MONEY. And money matters. Both to us as individuals and for our agencies.

It also gives a little glory to us creatives. Which is not forthcoming enough on a day-to-day basis.

They are also a fantastic way to see which agencies or countries are pushing the boundaries and what is possible.

So there is some merit in taking awards seriously. At least at face value.

But I think anyone who goes to sleep at night thinking they are hot shit because they have a DM gong is a fucking whopper with no soul.

Where do you stand?