The No Excuses path to awards
I often hear agency people making excuses for mediocre work — not enough time, not enough budget or decision-making by committee. Too often these excuses get in the way of good work.
Last year, we took a no excuses approach to improving the quality of our work. This approach came on the heels of a successful 2008, both financially and with work quality.
In 2009, when Capstrat won more Addy awards than any other local agency, you'd think we'd have been happy. But Chief Creative Officer Todd Coats, said good, but not quite good enough. Several of our awards were bronze or honorable mention. So, we set out not to win more awards, but to improve the quality of our awards.
Our no excuses approach meant we would expect great work no matter the circumstances. When we shared work internally, we talked about the strategy, the message and the results — not the low budget, unrealistic deadlines or the long hours. We used the normal barriers to good work as inspiration or even an asset in our creative process.
The results speak for themselves.
A video we developed with our clients at GSK won a Judges Choice award, a top honor. The video was concepted, filmed and produced in three weeks. We relied on close collaboration with our clients and our shared understanding of their business to create a video that produced cheers and tears from internal audiences.
An advertising campaign http://deliver.capstrat.com/development/capstrat/2010Addys/ for the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill won multiple awards. If you've ever worked on a higher education client, you know that committees are a part of the process. We were blessed with client contacts who helped navigate the organization, but we also embraced the knowledge of the crowd in campaign development. Our research included meetings with more than a dozen small groups and individual departments. Our open approach helped generate buy-in and uncovered stories that formed the basis of the award-winning campaign.
And, a low-cost grassroots campaign for Tobacco.Reality.Unfilitered. took home two silver awards http://deliver.capstrat.com/development/capstrat/2010Addys/ Our creative team used resourcefulness and a passion for the story to produce a campaign that's not only winning awards, but also is winning over a very skeptical teen audience.
There is no denying a bigger budget, more time and access to the decision maker can improve work quality. But, these factors aren't required for good work and can't make up for strategy, talent and creativity.
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