I am nameless

Its awards time in the Hatch Communications office, and between trying to juggle all of our client work we are also trying to shoehorn in filling out and preparing a number of awards for this year’s CIPR Pride Awards.

Now don’t get me wrong, I am a big believer in the whole awards thingy that all industries partake in. It’s not just about the glory, backslapping and getting one over on other agencies. Nor is it about getting hideously drunk, dancing like an arse and making a pass at the work experience girl, who suddenly after eight pints and a few glasses of the complementary Champaign, becomes hot. OK this is a big part of it. But, the biggest part and the real benefit of awards is the spiral they create.

Yes, clients all like to see their agency winning awards, and some brands may be more inclined to notice you if you have a few awards under your belt. However it’s the calibre of staff you can suddenly attract once you have won a few awards.

Many moons ago, when I first graduated and was trying to get in to the industry on a full time basis, I would read the good old trade mags of PR Week and Adline (The Drum as it is now). It was always the awards win stories that stood out for me, and it seems the agencies that were winning awards as start-ups back then are still winning awards and have an ever-growing enviable client list ten years on.

I put a major part of this down to the staff. Not in a “I couldn’t have got here without the great team behind me” crap that you hear. I am taking about the quality of staff you can attract. Everyone secretly likes a bit of glory, and in an industry where it’s our clients brands that are being pushed to the fore, as much as we would like to think its glamorous and sexy, the majority of PR, sadly, is not. So when you have the opportunity to work with an agency that gets a bit of glory, you jump at the chance.

And it’s this that creates the spiral. More awards attract a higher calibre of staff, that deliver more for the clients and produce better work, that delivers more awards, which attract an even better calibre of staff…… I think you get the picture.

This in itself is worth the entry fee to a few awards a year.

Obviously check back with me on the 12th November, when I will be hung over, dejected and bitching heavily how it’s all a fix and clique based voting system that the CIPR should be ashamed of. Or not. We shall see.