Tag Archives: awards
“We are our work.” As a creative agency, Critical Mass has always believed that we are ultimately judged by the caliber of our work. It’s not just about delivering extraordinary for our clients, but also for the standard that we set for ourselves.
The CMMYs is Critical Mass’ annual awards competition, honoring the best of the best work from each year. Winners are selected by a jury of executives and peers, and the honors are bestowed during a company-wide party that spans our offices in Calgary, Toronto, Chicago and London.
We’re proud to share this year’s CMMY 2011 Winners:
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From June 20 – 26 many of the most innovative global brands and communications leaders gathered at the Cannes Lions festival to discuss the latest trends in the ever-evolving advertising world. We decided to take an interview approach to share an insider look from our new friend at Contagious Magazine, North American Editor Nick Parish.
For those who are not familiar, Contagious is a leading global news and intelligence resource for the marketing industry that helps advertising professionals navigate their way through the new media landscape. Contagious was launched in London in 2004, covering topics like branded content, mobile-social-and viral marketing, and a bunch more. Essentially they’re most interested in all the ways ideas are transmitted outside of paid media. Nick helps steward Contagious NA from New York, where he’s worked in many forms of media since arriving in 2001. (Sports Writer for the New York Post, Silicon Alley startup Flavorpill’s Editor, Associate Editor of Advertising Age’s Creativity magazine, and most recently, Events Content Manager for Ad Age events like CaT: Creativity and Technology and the IDEA Conferences.)
We got together with Nick last week to discuss the week that was Cannes Lions 2010…
CM: Cannes is known for being the ultimate celebration of creativity. What was the most creative thing you came across?
Nick: Most creative thing? Single thing? Maybe people’s expense report strategies?
Seriously, it’s tough to nail down, and ultimately, even if you were to see all the work, that’s a really personal question. I enjoyed a lot of the Design work this year; that’s a group I haven’t paid much attention to since it was launched. But the category has only been around for a few years, so it’s pretty media-agnostic, and you get groundbreaking stuff that’s fundamentally aesthetically sound, like the Toyota IQ Font, which won Grand Prix.
Fundamental aesthetics will always be essential.
CM: What was a common theme running through the Cannes Advertising fest?
Nick: I think a common theme was re-building and re-thinking.
Everyone realized we had a bad run last year, and that undoubtedly affected things like resources and budgets, but the best projects, like Grand Prix winners Gatorade Replay and Best Buy’s Twelpforce, were ideas that became platforms that could stand on their own and grow.
In the instance of Gatorade, that’s changed the way PepsiCo structures that business, from a marketing sense, and Replay and Replay-esque things have become a serious part of their considerations. And it’s blossomed from episodic online content into events that are shot by Fox Sports Net just like they’d shoot any professional sport, in addition to a grassroots league and other side parts.
Another interesting theme is that we continue to see is the best work winning in multiple places. This happened last year with the Queensland Tourism Board’s “Best Job In The World” campaign, and again this year with Replay and Nike’s Chalkbot. All of a sudden we’re asking what each of these categories has to do with each other, and what applies best where.
Further, and this pains me a bit to say it, but the Cyber category feels like it’s really looking for direction. Digital is everywhere now—nearly every Grand Prix winner has a digital component, and most of them were really integral to their success. Even the ‘Film Craft’ winner, Philips’ “The Gift” from DDB London, was a webfilm. Cyber’s become a category for great websites, but now that everything moves digitally and lives everywhere it’s going to have to go through a bit of a renewal.
We all debate 
the true value of industry awards. We consider the cost. We lament the politics. We ponder the return. One consistent benefit that everyone seems to understand is the effect on employee morale. Winning an award is the ultimate satisfaction–justifying the greatness of your ideas, your abilities and your effort. That boost can solidify the bonds of a team and motivate them in their future work. But most importantly, that designation acts as a public celebration.
At Critical Mass, we love to celebrate. We celebrate our appreciation of one another through peer-nominated spot bonuses every month. We celebrate our appreciation of Fridays with bagels in the morning and beers in the afternoon. We celebrate our appreciation of our clients through crazy breakdancing videos sent as Christmas cards. Hell, we even celebrate our appreciation of bacon. But more than any of those, we know how important it is to celebrate our work. We even have our own award competition. We call them the CMMYs and we’re giving you a peek into the CMMY events of the past two weeks.
Here’s how it works:
Throughout the year, our executives are constantly evaluating our work. We hold ourselves to a standard of “extraordinary” and we don’t let ourselves slack. Then in March, our execs: Di, Chris, Neil, Lee, Darren, Scott, Antonio, Cam and John regroup and consider those pieces of work from the past year in accordance with our CMMY categories and select the winners–secretly. Each office proceeds to plan a kick-ass party, each aligned with the unique cultures of their location. All remote CMers far and wide are shipped into their “home” offices; this is not an optional event and no one is left out.
These parties are always epic and–with the help of the open bar–the anticipation rises to a fever pitch before our winners are announced. Each office has their own special way of delivering the news and celebrating, but there are a few common threads:
Beer
Shenanigans
Excitement
Pride
Team Bonding
…and, oh yes, more beer.
That excitement, pride and bonding is what makes it all so worthwhile. We boost each other up, celebrating the time we’ve spent and goals we’ve accomplished together. We’re so proud, we’d actually like to share our winning work with you too. So without further ado, here they are.
Best Brand Experience: Infiniti Global
Best Product Launch: Nissan Leaf
Best Site Redesign: Moen.com
Best Campaign: Rolex Reference Watches Media Campaign
Best New Biz Pitch: Harley Davidson eCommerce (a pitch we won, I might add!)
Best Distributed Experience: Vegas Bound Campaign
Best Mobile Experience: Gucci iPhone application
Best Return on Insight: Budweiser American Ale, Get Offline Campaign
Best Thought Leadership: i5 Summit for at&t
Best Internal Project: Chicago’s Prom (on a budget)
Best Community Building: Ella Nutella
Best Innovation: Nissan Leaf and Twitter Integration
Best in Show: Nissan Leaf
And very importantly, there are also two honors awarded to people.
The Rich Wilkins Award honors the late Rich Wilkins who truly embodies the spirit of Critical Mass. As the award outlines, “Richard had just the right combination of professionalism and lunacy to be a highly respected and greatly cherished leader, team member and friend.” For 2009, the CMer selected to receive this award was our universally liked, respected and appreciated…
Rebecca Bloom Geddes, Human Resources Director.
Secondly, the CMVP of the Year (we select one of these rock stars each month) was…
Shaina Boone, Group Marketing Science Director.
We have a whole post to share about how amazing Shaina is next week.
For now, we hope you enjoy the work we’ve shared as much as we’ve enjoyed creating it. There are some incredible products, services and even movements behind each and every one of these pieces of work and we are all humbled by the opportunity our clients give us everyday. With that, we’ll close because we are already off and running in 2010, motivated by the celebrations of last week to continue creating Extraordinary Experiences that make us all proud to be a part of Critical Mass.
Here are a few pictures we can share from these celebrations in Calgary, Chicago, Toronto and London. More will be coming soon!
As our blog name indicates, we at Critical Mass place a premium on experiences—ones that engage, captivate and connect users to brands in meaningful ways. In our quest for extraordinary experiences, we are proud to share a few that have garnered accolades from our industry peers.
- NASA.gov and Mercedes-Benz AMG 360 Honored at Webby Awards
Critical Mass’ NASA.gov site was named the official People’s Voice Winner in the Government category of the 13th Annual Webby Awards. As an official nominee, the NASA site was pitted against other contenders in the category and after the global Web community placed their votes, the NASA site came out on top. Also honored was Critical Mass’ work on the Mercedes-Benz AMG 360 Video Experience, which received an Official Honoree designation in the Automotive category.
- Budweiser American Ale Site Wins Regional ADDY Award
Critical Mass also took home a Silver Regional ADDY Award for its work on the Budweiser American Ale microsite. With this win in the District 6 Competition, the Budweiser American Ale work will go on to compete for national honors, to be presented at the AAF National Conference in Virginia.
