The truth about brand awards

The buzz about brand awards seems to be getting louder these days.
Everybody’s talking about them — brand specialists, marketers,
advertising executives, PR consultants, clients and even the common
folk.

An industry colleague recently asked about the veracity and
worthiness of the various brand award shows in the market. It’s not a
difficult a question to answer. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder,
and if one attaches value to something, so be it. But, at what price,
one may ask.

Many companies love receiving these awards. They flaunt the awards on
shelves for all to see. Some companies even go to the extent of buying
self-congratulatory advertisements in the media to make sure everyone
knows they won a brand award.

Nice pat on their backs — and really, there’s nothing wrong with
clients wanting their customers to know about the industry standing of
their brands and the organisations they are associated with.

Aye, but there’s the rub.

Straddled between the pomp and pageantry, there is also a healthy
scepticism about these awards. Recently a friend in a senior marketing
position was coerced by his boss to accept an award that seemed somewhat
dubious. The company had paid a hefty sum for a table at a gala dinner
and the book entry. The amount was big enough for me to have spilt the
glass of wine I was holding.

While I teased him about being duped, I could also empathise with his
situation. I, too, was once duped to sit on a panel, comprising
well-known personalities and industry colleagues, which conferred brand
awards. Some of us had expected a level of discussion and
decision-making to follow a short listing process. It never happened.

I later quit the panel after I noticed an advertisement announcing a
little-known brand that had been conferred the brand award in question.
The organiser was at a loss to explain how this had happened. It’s easy
for one to venture a guess.

While some companies choose to accept these awards as a means to
market themselves, many blue chip companies don’t participate if they
have doubts about the credibility of the award shows or the organisers.

For all intents and purposes, brand awards are only as good as the
jury that confers the accolades. One would expect their experience and
judgment to show through in the results.

Their verdict must be
based on a stringent methodology backed by respected researchers and
practitioners who have cut their teeth in brand marketing and have the
credentials to support them. The awards must also have wide acceptance
and endorsements from trade organisations.

It is not sufficient to have a high profile board of governors, or a
VVIP turn up at the event, whatever his stature. Sadly, however, such
trimmings sway us. A board whose members have worked in industry, built
brands of their own and actively participate in the decision-making
process to select the brands they endorse must support awards.

If they lend their names without taking an active role, or having
some line of sight on how the awards are decided, then they do the
industry at large a great disservice. Many of the winners could be just
victims who have a paid a large amount of money to purchase a dinner
table based on the perceived involvement of top personalities.
As a society, we must be cognisant of what titles and awards mean, and their true value.

While
I sympathise with some of the smaller brands trying to make their way
around the world, they could also do more to have a clear understanding
of how the awards are derived and if there is a rigorous methodology
involved. They must learn from real winners.

Awards are designed to acknowledge benchmarks and best practices that
others can learn from and emulate. It helps to contribute to the
improvement of our brands so that they achieve global standards. It will
also spur the branding services sector, which is an important part of
the Economic Transformation Programme.

If brand awards systematically encourage false standards and a sense
of security that is detached from reality, we will probably end up with
vacuous brands and whole lot of “jaguh kampung”.
The media can also play a prominent role in the advocacy of standards and refuse self-congratulatory advertisements.

Tony Savarimuthu is CEO of McCann Worldgroup and serves as president of the 4As of Malaysia.