And the Award Goes to ... Us!

reprinted by permission of Ralph Grabowski, editor

January 26, 2004

An Autodesk press release heralds its winning of awards from a couple of magazines for the excellence of its products. "Autodesk ... announced that it has received awards for its Electrical 2004, Mechanical 2004, and Discreet 3ds max 6 software solutions. Autodesk solutions continue to be recognized for their industry-leading innovation, superior quality, and value."

There is nothing wrong with the company expressing its pride at being selected for excellence. The problem, we suggest, is at the other end. Why do magazines and other organizations hand out awards? For two or three reasons, we figure:

1. To place themselves in the limelight; award announcements get easy billing in the news media, from which magazines get free advertising for themselves. Which is why upFront.eZine never covers magazine awards in our reporting.
2. To make major advertisers think happy thoughts toward magazines. The hope is that spending on advertising is maintained or increased, in reciprocity. To ward off charges of syncretism, some awards are handed out to truly innovative and small firms.
3. And then there is the psychology. The editors (or readers, depending) "know" the products, don't they? Surely they have the ability to sort the wheat from the chaff. Editors (or readers) never have ulterior motives, nope. Which is why upFront.eZine never hands out awards: we don't pretend to know everything.

It's discouraging knowing that potential customers base some/all of their buying decisions on the presence of award stickers.

One year, during the opening minutes of the AEC Systems show, staff of a CAD magazine scurried about the exhibit area, handing out "Best of Show" awards to ten booths. When we challenged the editor on the validity of the awards ("How could you know, without first visiting every booth?"), he retorted that the show held no surprises for him. The awards had been decided on weeks prior.

At another show, we were asked to mediate a debate between a CAD magazine editor and his advertising sales director. The editor wanted to give a Best of Show award to a small innovative CAD software company; the advertising director wanted the award to go to the largest vendor at the show. She was worried the large CAD vendor might reduce its advertising with the magazine, if its ego were not massaged by awards. In the end, mammon won.

That debate cemented the realization that awards are puffery. Soleexception: awards to the efforts by users to create excellent designs and images.

We don't blame Autodesk and others for accepting and publicizing awards; we do the same. It's the magazines and other organizations that need to think about why they do it. We suspect, however, that nothing will change, because for them award-handing-out is just another tool in the marketing backpack."

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