We often joke, in that irrepressible, self-deprecating ad-business manner, that advertising award shows exist mostly as ego trips for creatives. In fact, I would suggest that award shows play a far more serious industry role (while acknowledging, of course, that ego feeding is still serious ad business.)

Award shows don't simply reward people who produce the best work, they also function as barometers for cultural and creative shifts in a business that desperately pursues all new things cultural and creative - particularly at times when the industry is in major upheaval, as it most certainly is now. The plain and simple fact is that as TV ads lose traction and online entertainment, social media, and consumer-generated content are emerging as serious ad strategies, advertisers are busying themselves with these new solutions.

Because they are advertising buyers, not sellers, brands have a totally different attitude about the marketing channels available to them. If a coupon or keyword search does a better job than a spot from Mother and Jonathan Glazer, what does a CMO care?

Meanwhile, ad agencies and production companies, who made their reputations (and their profits) off 30-second spots are resisting the New Marketing solutions. And most New Marketing dialogue has been ghettoized into vague discussions at conferences.

The real forum for change, the award show, has been slow and even resistant. All this ostrich-like behavior is in spite of the fact that the best way to examine something is to actually see it.

While most shows are trying, in small ways, to include New Marketing, they are letting us down when presenting a true picture of the movement. And without a window into this medium, we are falling behind.

Why aren't the shows doing a better job?

The creation of traditional print and TV spots is deeply imbedded in the DNA of ad agencies - and most judges, who come from the creative departments of agencies, still feel the ultimate art form is the 30-second spot. Award shows are the place in which they can make their preference stubbornly clear.

The inability to address New Marketing is also the result of the style and breadth of the new work, and the failure of shows to adapt to the format. Submissions to award shows frequently number in the thousands. While it's possible to deal with that many spots, how do you cope with campaigns that run for months, supplying loads of new material to an engaged audience?

Frequently, none of the key elements of a branded campaign are specifically designed as stylish representations of the brand, as is a print or broadcast ad. Instead the parts of a branded campaign function as story and debate instigators. The challenge becomes how to boil three months of content down to five minutes. Then there's the issue with credits for branded entertainment - people are still arguing about who invented BMW Films.

To my thinking the only show that's really got it right so far is the ANA/AICP's Battle of the Brands, which picks four finalists and gives them a half hour to present the campaign in person, on stage, talking through strategy, creative, production and results.

So the question remains, if New Marketing is so attractive to clients and creative mavericks, why haven't shows changed their formats, jury makeup and credits?

This year nary an award show has given its top prize to a branded project, even though there are a number that are deserving. Not to piss anyone off, but the Converse Gallery is far more innovative - and I'll bet measurably more effective - than Honda's "Impossible Dream". (But if "Impossible Dream" were part of a larger, ongoing campaign exploring why the guy went over the cliff...)

As my Aunt Ruth once said about what goes on in her head nightly, "I stay up with so many questions; it's standing room only up there!" Here are a few of mine:

* How do you evaluate branded projects that frequently play out like TV series, over a number of months in multiple mediums?

* How do you evaluate ongoing blogs and discussion forums at an award show?

* And how do you motivate creatives to explore a whole new world they're not trained or rewarded to explore?

Somehow we need to answer these questions, beginning with the iceberg's tip, the award show. The New Marketing is here to stay and is largely more innovative, more creative and more effective than the 30-second spot. Disagree? Let's ask the real judges of our work, our clients and our audience - who are voting with their eyeballs, their fingers, their feet. And their wallets.

KEY RECOMMENDATIONS
1. Change the presentation and judging format so that more time is given to an explanation of how a campaign played over time and the strategic use of differing mediums of distribution. Most importantly, ask about the overall story and the role the brand played in that story.

2. Ensure that juries include New Marketing practitioners who can translate the entries.

3. Allow creators to present in person to the judges in the finals wherever possible. Find a way to make the final judging interactive.

4. Factor in strategy and results - even for purely creative shows - as they are inseparable from creative consideration.

5. Expand award show credits to include creative groups and their key creatives. While maintaining the correct position of the agency of record, we need to find a place at the awards table for groups that collaborate with agencies of record.

6. Develop new categories for New Marketing skills like use of forums, puzzles, campaign-wide narrative, and short films. Reduce the number of awards for less important elements like different categories of websites and banners that are only tools in a campaign. (We don't give an award for sound recording in spots, right?)

7. Don't assume a spot should always win the top prize.

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