What do businesses love to do? Whatever little exposure I’ve had of the corporate world, I have always felt it was conversations with their consumers that they loved best. It is the consumer that talks about the product innovations it needs, the changes in communication strategy that must be thought of, and a change or addition in the product-line when it is time for it. The company that has the right mechanisms to listen, understand, and take actions on these conversations goes and wins hearts… and sells well. These are the companies that need to be awarded.
Now that we are on awards for the corporate world, there will always be some Vice President – Digital Strategy or GM – Marketing or the 2nd VP – CSR or someone equally important in customer care, PR, ecommerce, R&D, and branding who will have had a brain-wave that does the samba with consumer expectations and then actually bothers to do some serious thinking on it before doling ideas out as strategy. These strategic thinkers too need to their share of recognition.
Awards, therefore, are an essential part of corporate strategy today. Performance needs to be rewarded and this is what the consumers search for before forming an opinion about the company or organisation with which they may finally decide to interact. Look at the newspapers and you’ll know the vital role that awards today have… from universities, institutes, and colleges to those selling insurance, from the NGOs contributing to the health of our ecosystem to the wise men who wish to inject society with culture… everyone wants to get awards to show that they are indeed having a fruitful existence. Even films have more than a healthy share of awards coming their way… and we know how meaningless this race can become.
Awards can be great PR, leave a distinct subliminal impact on those who matter, give a booster to an individual’s profile and even make an organisation seem more serious about its task. Awards can create belief in the minds of the consumer and others who will be impacted and can be not just a source of reassurance but also a benchmark of good deliverance of their product or services. Thus clients, potential clients, and peers are the ones who comb websites searching for the awards that a company has been rewarded with.
Indian Brand Convention & BAM Awards, organized by Delhi-based Wafisilpa Entertainments is one of the many sources for awards. The 2016 season of Indian Brand Convention & BAM Awards is open for participation and the Indian Brand Convention is a whole-day conference, involving participation from Branding, Marketing, Design, Communications, Advertising, Sales, and Creative professionals among others where all Branding, Marketing, Design, Communications, Advertising, Sales, and Creative professionals in the country can participate. Indian Brand Convention & BAM Awards aim at recognizing all such professionals and offer them a platform to share their stories to inspire others. Speaking about this year’s event, Talees Rizvi, the Director of Wafisilpa Entertainments, states, “A number of professionals have already registered for the event and some of the industry bigwigs are in the race for this grand recognition. However, we are expecting more participation till the entry closes and are being ready for a massive event at the financial capital of the country.”
Yes, these are success stories that really need to be shared on a larger platform and people are entitled to know them all. This can be the right sort of substrate for encouraging better performance in all ways.
Awards lend not just respectability but also credibility. However, one needs to be sure that the awards too come from a respectable and credible source. The relevance of industry associations or officially endorsed by government bodies is what gives awards the power that organisations are always looking for. Frankly, I was not able to get any information on the associations and endorsements front from the people who are responsible for BAM Awards… and my email went unanswered. An unsubstantiated guess is that the Indian Brand Convention has been around for a few years and is still trying to build its credibility. Will awards from such a source actually give any confidence to the consumer? I searched the websites of a few of those who have received this award in the past and found that they have listed this one as well as an attempt to seem better than their competitor/s. So if this is what organisations want, this is what they readily and heartily get.
My only concern is that awards must never be treated as some sort of a licence to go ahead and mislead the consumer… or they will be as meaningless as the ranking systems for educational institutes that exist today. Organisations have entered the world of business to do business and not to show how easily they can collect awards. So long as they are doing their job with honesty and are not intent upon misleading the consumer, awards can always be tolerated. Well, even those awards that are yet to stand straight and walk steadily in the company of associations, recognitions, and government endorsements.
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Awards need to initiate meaningful conversations
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Arvind Passey
17 April 2016
