Welcome to Friday Fiascos...

A weekly look back at some of the f**k-ups and misdemeanors I've experienced and witnessed during my career...        

The Award winners who didn't submit any entries...

I was an ADMA Awards judge for more than 20 years and Chair at least three times.

It was a fascinating insight into how some agencies operate.

When direct marketing agencies called themselves direct marketing agencies, and entered the annual direct marketing awards run by the Australian Direct Marketing Association (ADMA), two agencies regularly claimed to be the most awarded.

When Chairman of Judges I discovered why.

In one particular year, these two agencies together accounted for more than a third of all entries. They submitted dozens of entries and entered every category. They played a numbers game, that generally resulted in them winning lots of awards, even if they weren't the top award per category - it was about quantity, not quality, and the associated bragging rights.

The more awards they won, the more likely they could claim to be the most awarded agency. It's why I always say 'award winners are a function of award entries.' Much of the best work is never entered into award competitions.

In one particular year, another agency that didn't usually enter the competition, submitted quite a few entries - and won a number of awards with some amazing results.

A quick background to history - the ADMA, USDMA, NZDMA and DMAsia awards were all based on results - know as 'performance' in modern marketing jargon. And these awards existed before the Effies were created.

But back to the story...

Part of my role as Chairman was to do some auditing of award winners, to ensure the facts provided in the entry forms were correct. This was done prior to the Awards Gala Event.

One of this agency's winners was a former client and colleague of mine. We'd sat on association committees together. So, I had no hesitation calling her to congratulate her on the results and verify them, as she had signed the entry the agency had submitted.

She immediately pleaded ignorance and had no idea what I was talking about. I explained the entry, the results and her signature on the entry form. To say she was a tad pissed off would be an understatement. She knew nothing about the entry, hadn't signed it, hadn't given the agency permission to use the confidential results, and let me know quite clearly what she was going to say to the agency, when the call was finished.

I hung up and gathered all the other entries from this agency. I then rang each of the clients who had allegedly signed the entry forms. And you guessed it dear reader, they all reacted just like the first client I'd rung.

Turns out, all the entry details had been falsified by the agency - including the client signatures.

So, I rang the owner of the agency - a very talented woman, who made an extremely healthy living from her business. She had once been a client of a multinational agency I ran, so we knew each other.

Well, if I was expecting a conciliatory discussion, maybe even surprise and an explanation of who might have done this in the agency without her knowledge, I was mistaken. This MD went from "good to hear from you" to the mouth of a trade union delegate, screaming obscenities, eventually telling me where to stick the awards and to F***k Off before hanging up on me.

My guess is she knew all about the false entries and didn't like being caught out.

Consequently, those awards weren't issued to that agency and we had to do another round of judging in the applicable categories.

In the following years, for the rest of my time as a judge, that agency never entered the awards again. But it did make me a little cynical about award competitions, as I wondered how often the entries were false.

My only consolation was that three years after starting my agency, it was the most awarded direct marketing agency in the country - without submitting dozens of entries.

So, I'll just flex a little here and bask in that ancient history...

#ADMA #awards #awardscams