Why 'winning' awards is a con (and BAD for your business)

A few years ago I visited a school close to Leeds where I live. The purpose of my visit was to discuss the possibility of doing some marketing work for the school as this is something that my company has a lot of experience of.

It became obvious early on in the meeting that I was wasting my time.

The school's business manager told me that all their marketing and publicity work was done by a well-known company that I had heard of before. This company specialise in marketing work with schools. I asked the manager how much she paid for their school prospectus and magazine, and it turned out that the school were paying literally double what my company would charge them to produce publications of the same (or higher) standard than what they were currently producing.

To put it bluntly, the school were being 'royally screwed' by this well-known marketing agency.

I asked the school's business manager if she would consider giving my company the chance to produce the publications for them, and I showed her samples of work we had done with other local schools that were just as good - but far cheaper.

The manger was very reluctant to give me the opportunity. The sticking point was that the agency they were using at the moment had (her words): "helped them to win" several national school marketing awards.

So I went away and did some research about these 'awards' that the school had won. And guess what? They were the type of award that anyone can easily win if you put a bit of money into advertising with the award organisers, or if you sponsor some of the tables at the awards ceremony. The more money you pay, the better the award - ranging from 'Highly Commended' to 'First Prize'. Basically, anyone who pays anything will get some kind of award. The whole thing was a total con.

But I know from 30 years of experience that this is rife throughout the world of business.

I'm not sure if the school realised what was going on and were just going along with it ... OR if their marketing agency had hoodwinked them into thinking they had 'won' an award, when really the agency were just using some of their massive profit margin to curry favour with the award organisers. Either way, these awards had really been 'bought' not won.

But after three decades working in marketing and business, there is something that I do know for absolute certain. The vast majority of end-of-year business 'awards' have some kind of money incentive, sponsorship, advertising, or other 'back-hander' linked to them.

I even know of a very famous annual music award in the UK where a lot of money secretly gets passed on by record companies to get their artists onto the shortlist. I can't name the award here through fear of being sued for libel. But if you happen to be a reader in Britain, then I guarantee that you will have heard of this particular music award. And I know this is true because I have a friend who works in the music industry who was offered the chance to be on the shortlist... if enough money was handed over.

Secretly, of course.

So whenever it comes to this time of year and I see on social media the array of companies boasting about winning awards, I take it all with a huge pinch of salt. The entire business awards industry is a complete 'con trick' simply designed to make money for the organisers of the awards.

With this in mind, I have noticed recently on LinkedIn a plethora of people in dinner jackets and cocktail dresses clutching awards and showing off to LinkedIn members about how successful they are.

And I just think to myself: you are a complete fraud and you know you are a fraud. It's just a shame that many of your customers will be taken-in by this sham.?