And the winner is…non-existent?
I was struck by a story making the media rounds this past week about someone who fooled a noted magazine, Wine Spectator, into giving an award to a non-existent restaurant in Italy.
The reason wine critic Robin Goldstein says he put the entire concoction together was to show that awards programs have gotten out of hand, with magazines and others offering them simply to make money on entry fees rather than to truly find the best of anything.
I’ve been involved in magazine award programs in my career and hope that most magazines that give them take more effort than Wine Spectator seems to have with its program. But in doing them, I also was always struck by how hungry PR and marketing people in general are to get these awards for their companies and/or their clients.
Everyone likes to be liked, I suppose. And third-party validation and recognition is worth more, opinion and image-wise, than any paid media. But has the whole award thing gotten out of hand? Look ay Hollywood. I always look forward to the Oscars because I’m a serious movie buff. But now there’s also the Golden Globes and scores of others, do we really need all those too? And what good do they really do those movies?
How big a role do awards play in your brand-building efforts? How do you decide which are worth striving for and which are really just ways for their sponsors to rake in some cash?
