No ADCN

Tonight almost everybody who has anything to do Dutch advertising will be at the award show of the ADCN (Art Directors Club Netherlands). Nobody can't wait to see who won Holland's most prestigious awards, which is in the shape of a lamp. Lemz is nominated twice for a brillant IKEA-campaign. Any award show who wants to be taken seriously should award a campaign like that. And I don't just say that because I work there. As I'm writing this, everybody is standing in line for the ADCN, wearing a tuxedo or an evening dress, the mandatory garment. So you guessed already that I'm not going.

I'm not going there on purpose. It's not, like so many stubborn creatives who are not going, that I have something against the ADCN. On the contrary, I think they're doing a good job to bring Dutch advertising on a higher level. I just feel that there's no point in going there if I have no chance to win an award myself. It felt the same about the local Belgian award show.

Now this is a really personal thing. And if I tell it to my new colleagues they think I'm a bit of a nutter. It's also difficult to explain why I'm not going. For some reason I just don't see the point. To see the winning work is not inspiring to me because it's only a fraction of the good work that is made worldwide. I don't want to go there for the networking because I'm already in the agency that I want to be. So that only leaves the party for me. A party is always good, but why should I watch three hours of people walking on a stage who receive an award of which only Dutch advertising people know it exists, just to go to a party? Then I might as well go to a pub and start drinking immediately. Which happened to be the plan for tonight.

I don't want to win a lamp-award anymore and I think that because of this attitute, I will never make the typical work that will get me one. But still I can't help feeling a bit excited to know whether Lemz won one. They certainly deserve it. And it's always good to see even happier faces in the agency.

UPDATE: as expected, Lemz won a silver lamp in the category Interactive. I'm proud of my agency :-).