Everyone’s a winner
It is officially Awards Season for the movie industry with the Golden Globes hosted again this year by Ricky Gervais on January 10th – the first of the big three.
On February 14th it’s the Baftas in London playing host to many of the same stars in the build-up to the big one which is the Oscars on February 28th.
There will be wall to wall media coverage with in-depth analysis of who is wearing what and double page spreads of fashion winners and losers as well as line by line analysis of the award presenters’ gags and gaffes. There might even be a selfie to break the internet again.
All media from social to broadcast and print and online sections with the (possible) exception of sport sections will cover the awards with an inevitable focus on plucky British winners even if they are in the slightly less glamorous categories. A British Oscar for Sound Mixing is still a British winner.
It all underlines the power of awards to deliver massive media interest as well as a huge marketing push for the winners and sponsors.
The big three are not the only movie awards – there are in January and February for instance, the Palm Springs Film Festival, London Critics’ Circle and Producers Guild Awards. They are all undoubtedly fine awards but not all awards generate the same level of media interest.
On a very marginally less glamorous level there are awards in most industries with – to pick a couple at random – the Mortgage Strategy Awards on February 17th in London and the PR Moment Awards on March 2nd in London and March 9th in Manchester.
Unfortunately winning awards in industries outside the movie world does not immediately translate to media coverage.
The excellent Mortgage Strategy award winners will be covered in the magazine but rival publications will ignore them. Most award schemes will have media partners reporting the winners meaning other media will not.
Awards are important as they demonstrate excellence and best practice while also underpinning corporate values. Winning deserves celebration but issuing a press release and awaiting coverage is not the best approach.
The challenge for PR is to ensure there is an understanding of what can be achieved as well as a plan to maximise the media potential of a win. That can be achieved by designing wider campaigns focusing on the issues and by targeting relevant media whether it is local or trade as well as by maximising opportunities with media partners.
Not everyone can be a winner but when you do win you need to make the most of it – and if you don’t there’s always next year.