And the Oscar for awards obsession goes to… the advertising industry

To understand just how small a role awards play in the film industry, relative to the marketing industry, let’s start with a thought experiment. 

Tom Cruise, the biggest movie star of all time, has not yet won an Oscar. Now, imagine that every eyeball he has earned during his four decades at the top had instead been bought. That the roughly $10 billion box office to his name represented media spent, not revenue generated. 

I am fascinated by the contrasting importance of awards in the film industry and the advertising industry.

In a world where audience attention was a commodity to be traded, would his Academy Award record still stand at zero? And if it did, would he still be Tom Cruise? 

Above: Tom Cruise has amassed billions at the box office but has zero Oscars to show for it. 

Having spent a decade of my working life movie-industry-adjacent – even adding my own footnote to awards season by moving the previously obscure Empire Awards into a pre-Oscars calendar date – I am fascinated by the contrasting importance of awards in the film industry and the advertising industry. That difference in a nutshell? Well, I have interviewed dozens of movie stars and I have mixed with at least as many advertising creatives and, believe me, only one group obsesses about awards.

For actors, awards have little bearing on acing the next audition.

This is not to say one group is more self-regarding than the other. It is just that, for actors, awards have little bearing on acing the next audition. Box office, on the other hand, is king. There’s a reason why Nomadland director Chloe Zhao’s next gig is a Marvel movie. 

Of course, no one would argue that box office closely correlates with quality (and many in film marketing could argue that box office depends, in large part, on the quality of promotion the product receives). But, in terms of assessing the relative role awards play, that’s kind of the point. In the film industry, awards play an important corrective role. Awards season balances the bottom-line fixation that drives so much creative decision making.

In the film industry, awards play an important corrective role.

But in a world without box office, where your work can only ever be as big as the media buy behind it, you can understand why awards take on an outsized role. Simply put, for an advertising creative or executive, awards represent the only level playing field for appreciation, and the only outside source of validation.

So, what’s wrong with this picture?

Above: Chloe Zhao picked up this year's Oscar for Best Picture for Nomadland and her next project is a Marvel film. 

Well, for much of marketing, nothing really. A harmless industry quirk maybe. But advertising is evolving, connecting to culture in social spaces. And, as brands increasingly compete in the attention economy, as they look to create seek-out content, to avoid ad-avoidance, it is perhaps a good time to take the temperature on the super-sized role awards play as a creative incentive.

In advertising, the argument that sucks all the oxygen from the room is between clients that flinch from brave work and agencies that thirst to try something new.

Because, like it or not, box office remains a good proxy for earned attention. Ditto book sales, and web traffic, and viewing figures, and every other measure of consumer media performance. And earning every eyeball forces you to be authentically and consistently audience-first. Studio executives may give doltish feedback (as the original studio notes for Blade Runner cribbed by Harrison Ford at the Oscars amply demonstrate) but they all understand the real client is the consumer.

In advertising, the argument that sucks all the oxygen from the room is between clients that flinch from brave work and agencies that thirst to try something new. But neither of these traditional camps is particularly audience-first. As the combined box office of any Best Picture line-up will attest to; just because a product is good doesn’t mean it is popular.

Juries – and therefore creatives – jump to novelty.

Juries – and therefore creatives – jump to novelty. I spent many years as a film critic and my takeaway from that time is this; when you are paid to watch movie after movie 9-to-5, the films that take chances with the form, that push the boundaries of the medium, physically leap off the screen. Are these ground-breaking art works the same films I now flop in front of on a Friday night? Of course not.