What can an award do to your agency? And to which you should apply?

Do you know the number of agencies in the world? The exact number is practically impossible to determine, but some speak to over 500,000! 

One thing is sure the competition is fierce! Indeed with such a low barrier to entry, any person who owns a laptop and has decent experience can claim to have their own agency even if it looks like a freelance business in the early days. 

And even though agencies are as varied as the number of agencies from a small local shop to a big corporate-lie group, independent boutique agencies with a national reach don’t forget. Or fast-growing mid-size agencies with an international presence. 

If it was only this? As we saw many times in articles or articles, agencies to strive in a competitive market positioning and offering is vital whether it is about a vertical or horizontal positioning or a combination of both.

For the client, it has become so hard to choose from that platform such as Ad World Masters have a reason to be by allowing Marketers to narrow down the type of agency they would need for a specific business challenge.

Awards are a staple of our industry for the simple reason that they assess qualities such as creativity, performance, craft, to name a few.

But what are the main reasons why agencies should consider an award? Let’s dive down into our five reasons why awards matter.

1. FAME (and publicity)

By being honored with a title as an agency, the company enters the elite and hall of fame of this award. The award show will be publicly promoted and recognized for the year on. This means two things: your agency will attract some clients, and it will attract some talents

2. Trust

Hiring an agency is a bit like hiring a coach; you expect him/ them to be great at what they do, and you want to hire the best you can afford. 

Picture your favorite sport (be it baseball, swimming, chess). You are to enter a competition, and you want a coach. You consider a few, all have great recommendations, but you see one has more awards on his shelf. Wouldn’t this influence your decision? Don’t think! Unconsciously it would 😉 

3. Differentiation 

This point comes in hand with the latter. Think you are hiring somebody (for your agency, maybe).

You are lucky enough to have a lot of great applicants with excellent portfolios, and you have interviews with the selected few that match your expectations. All candidates nail the interviews, and it is hard to decide, yet one of them has mentioned he won prestigious awards – This is his differentiation point. 

4. Team motivation

When good work and hard work get appraised, we are motivated to continue. In a team, this will affect all members’ morale and social interaction. Senior and juniors would do their best to contribute to the greatness of the agency.

5. More $$

Receiving an award for an agency has the same effect as receiving a diploma, and this is the promise of better pay. At least one agency can afford to be more selective with its clients and has an argument to support its pricing.

So if you wonder if awards are worthy, they probably are. The next question is: What award to apply to? With the most famous such as Cannes Lions, D&AD, Effie, Clio’s, Eurobest, Lia’s, to name just a few while they are hyper prestigious, they are also extremely costly to enter; both in terms of participation fee as in time engaged in preparing the application. Once winning, you are yet to pay for your trophy. In practice, some fees can ramp up to $5000 (five thousand!) for one entry in one award, and you are not sure to win – Yes, that’s right.

While we appreciate and think these awards are also an essential part of our industry, we know there is an unfair advantage that favors bigger agencies with more generous budgets to apply to these awards in a way smaller agencies can’t compete.

With this in mind, at Ad World Masters, we initiated our Agency of The Year competition awarding the best agencies from all around the world based on our technology. Agencies scoring 8.5 and above are awarded depending on the score of one of the three titles, Gold, Silver, and Bronze. The title is discerned for free only the trophy is paid. Interested? 

To apply, it’s simple: register to list your agency on Ad World Masters let AI algorithms do the work, and if you score well enough, you will be able to collect your award in January. Learn more about this year’s competition. 

Ad World Masters offer a easy approach to new business by bringing publicity to agencies with a single platform. Interested how it can help your agency? Discover our services.