Is Less More?

THE HAMMER

There was a time when winning an advertising award meant something extraordinary. One campaign. One trophy. One unforgettable night.

Today, a single campaign can collect dozens of awards across multiple shows, categories, disciplines, regions and continents. Gold becomes Grand Prix. Grand Prix becomes Best of Show. Regional winners become global winners. The same idea returns, dressed in a different tuxedo, to collect another standing ovation.

Which raises an uncomfortable question.

Have we become better at recognising creativity, or simply better at rewarding the same work repeatedly? This is not an argument against awards. Far from it.

The advertising industry needs awards. They inspire better work, celebrate excellence, motivate talent and provide clients with tangible proof that creativity delivers commercial value.

Every great industry needs a benchmark for greatness. But perhaps it is time to ask whether we have confused quantity with quality.

When one campaign wins 30 or 40 trophies around the world, has the industry recognised 40 examples of excellence, or one?

Imagine the film industry handing the same Oscar to the same movie every month in a different theatre. Or football awarding the World Cup every quarter to the same team. Eventually, the celebration would lose its meaning.

Scarcity creates value. That is true of diamonds, vintage wines and Olympic gold medals. It is equally true of awards.

There is another consequence that deserves attention.

Every trophy awarded repeatedly to the same campaign is a trophy that cannot recognise another deserving idea. Every repeated celebration narrows the spotlight. The long tail of excellent work disappears behind a handful of international blockbusters.

The industry begins to look less diverse than it really is.

Young agencies struggle to be noticed. Independent shops fight for visibility. Brilliant local ideas are overshadowed by campaigns travelling endlessly through the global awards circuit.

The irony is that our business celebrates originality while often rewarding repetition.

Perhaps the answer is not fewer awards shows. Each has its own purpose, audience and perspective. Nor is the answer to limit creativity to a single competition.

Perhaps the answer is to measure achievement differently.

What if we celebrated unique Gold-winning campaigns rather than the total number of trophies won? What if we valued breadth of excellence instead of accumulation?

What if success were measured not by how many awards one campaign collected, but by how many different campaigns demonstrated outstanding creativity?

Such a shift would reward consistency over concentration.

It would encourage agencies to produce ten remarkable ideas instead of one idea that spends two years touring the awards circuit.

Clients would benefit from a broader culture of innovation.

The industry would celebrate more winners, greater diversity and more fresh thinking. Awards would regain something they may have quietly lost. Exclusivity.

The purpose of an award has never been merely to decorate a cabinet. Its purpose is to define a moment.

To say that, in this place, at this time, this piece of work moved the industry forward.

Perhaps that moment should happen only once. Because the true measure of creativity is not how many trophies an idea can collect.

It is whether that idea changed the way we think. Sometimes, less really is more.

As a convenor of awards shows, this is also a note to myself about how my own organisation can and should promote creativity and originality without compromising standards, rewarding everyone or attempting to appease anyone except the very best.