Awards, Marketing Effectiveness

The 2017 Oscars. The gulf between awards and market performance.

The 2017 Academy Awards once again recalls the gulf between awards and results. Between creativity and market performance. None of the top twenty box office hits of 2016 made the nominations for Best Picture, the most prized Oscar.

Many creatives and advertising agencies see their works through the lens of a Cannes Lion or a D&AD Pencil. They live on Applausia, where every citizen aspires to awards. Problem is, the paymasters – CEOs and CMOs – live on Earth, several million light years from Applausia. On Earth, you are as celebrated as last quarter’s result, not by a bronze image.

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Innovation, Marketing Effectiveness

“Come now. Let’s make us a soup with the CMO.”

I’ve had a dream where, in the C-suite, all the important Cs were seated together at one end of a long shiny table, and the CMO, with his pink pocket square, was seated alone at the other end of the table. The CMO smiled uneasily at the other Cs. The smile was not returned. The CEO then brought out a voodoo doll and placed it on the table. The doll had on a pink pocket square too. The COO brought out a set of knives and handed a knife each to the other Cs. The Executive Vice President for Sales asked for and got three knives. The door lock clicks in place. The blinds come down. The CFO smiles balefully at the CMO. The CMO gulps. I wake up.

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