What I won't be looking for at this year's IAB Awards.

I'll be on the judging panel for this year's IAB Awards. So here's what I won't be looking for...

Perhaps unsurprisingly, awards have grown into a monster of our own making.

Case study films have become an art form in their own right. You can appreciate that faced with a mountain of entries, juries head straight for the 90-second download - the ad for the ad.

It's a competitive world and everyone's looking for an edge - even over other agencies in their own network. Scratch that - especially over agencies in their own network.

Agencies' performances are judged by business wins, turnover, commercial results and yes - awards. Awards mean points and points mean prizes. Which drives many agencies to look to awards to precipitate rather than validate their progress.

It breeds a particular type of entry. The formula: find a surprising and emotive insight, build an idea around it and find a client willing to have it made for them.

We can all recall prominent examples from recent years. And it would be unfair to highlight specific ones when there have been so many offenders.

Meanwhile, some agencies seem to focus on doing self-promotional entries with very little to show for their paying clients. It feels like they're focusing their energies in the wrong place.

I won't lie; I'll take winning an award over not winning one any day. And yes, there are moments when judging your own nascent work you ask yourself, could it win something?

The thing is, work is so subjective it's often hard to gauge its worth in the scheme of things. It's impossible not to be biased. Awards are a stamp of approval from your peers - those four months were officially not a complete waste of your time; shake Frankie Boyle's hand; have a gong!

With that in mind, awards should be a bonus not, the primary objective.

I don't want to see work done specifically for juries. I want to see work that was born out of a genuine business challenge. An idea that has its rivals face-palming, bemoaning the fact it's not their logo bottom right.

I don't want to see 'sadvertising' that wants an award for its attempt to make the world a better place.

I want to see an unfashionable brand create a B2B campaign that turns the sector on its head - that found a way in no one else could see. Something that sickens me to think that I missed it and they didn't.

I don't want to see an award-a-matic case study film with a whistle-y soundtrack for a charity I've never heard of or a worthy app that has suspiciously few downloads.

I want to see an astonishing insight strapped to the back of an untamed creative beast of an idea, lavished with craft from a harem of talent.

And it's hard. So many factors at play. Politics, personalities, careers, budgets and a raft of other agendas.

If you can come up with a winning idea and shepherd it through the whole process without having its ankles cut from under it, preserving and enhancing the raw beauty of that core thought with the execution and create a shimmering monument that reminds us all why we came into this business in the first place, well... you deserve an award.

This piece originally appeared on the IAB site.

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