…what about the Highly Commended at the CIPD Recruitment Marketing Awards? Or even the other finalists for that matter? Seeing the standard of entries at awards is how the bar is supposedly kept high. Recognising the best work in a year. Judging if you think it deserved it. Debating if you think it didn’t. What was also important was comparing it to the rest of the nominations/shortlist. Something the CIPD have now obviously decided to forget.
On the night there was no work displayed until the winners were approaching the stage. Not throughout the evening. Not during the shortlist announcement. And definitely not in the awards brochure afterwards. Agency and client logos do not a shortlist excitement make. By default we know some of the work that was shortlisted by reputation (or should that be by the RADs approach of highlighting some of the same shortlisted entries during their dinner earlier this year).
Press is dying and yet there were 5 shortlisted, wouldn’t it have been great to see how they compared with the golden age of print? How about digital? Websites? Social media? Effectiveness? All much talked about sectors of recruitment, all just represented by one example on the night. Then there was copywriting, with only 2 shortlisted it begs what the second place was like. (And a more pertinent question of why there were only two in the first place, but that’s for another time perhaps.)
Is it now becoming awards for awards sake? That it’s more important to know who won rather than what won. The ‘work’ and what it represents should be the most important factor celebrated at any awards. In this goldfish attention-span world, can we only remember one piece of work? And forget the rest?
andsome blog 
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