A Friendly Kick in the Ass

April 26th, 2010

Late last week our inboxes were flooded with the exciting news that the deadline for the Small Agency Awards had been extended. And, for a brief moment, we forgot all about some of the things that make Skadaddle special (if we do say so ourselves) and considered entering the “aha moment” campaign for “Campaign of the Year.”

Entering the contest (let’s face it, that’s exactly what it is, “Dancing with the Stars” for Small Agencies – except that we don’t get any face time with the judges), we thought, could provide us with the opportunity to win. And winning, well, that would provide us with potential prestige. It could provide us with an instant boost of morale. It could provide us with the opportunity to update our email signatures. It could provide us with a really neat trophy.

What we briefly forgot, however, is that we don’t care about awards at Skadaddle. We especially don’t care about awards where the rules for entry include the language, “Remember, a bored or confused judge is not going to give you a higher mark.” Heaven forbid the judges should get bored! A catastrophe of epic proportions!

We love the work we’ve done on the “aha moment” campaign, and the fact is, the responses we’ve received from our client and consumers in the social media sphere are the only accolades we care about. Thinking for a minute that we cared about a random “judge” (who might just be bored!) was a wake-up call.

Skadaddle wasn’t founded to be an agency. We created Skadaddle to NOT be an agency. We created Skadaddle to do work that our clients liked, but also that we liked. We wanted to build something where people had fun. And by “people,” we mean anyone that comes in contact with Skadaddle – clients, producers, consumers, fans, followers, dogs, and yes, even the occasional monkey (about which, we’ve promised PETA we will not use in any of our work). Some trophy from some dude who may or may not be bored and is basing his decision on a few links isn’t going to make our day more fun. It would probably have the opposite affect.

The fact that we even considered the award, however – even for just a minute – is the kind of friendly kick in the ass that we need from time to time. It’s that instant “check-in” that allows you to take a good, long introspective look at yourselves to find out if you’re still on track. We weren’t. While we hold on to the core values of why we started the company and how we wanted to go about executing those values, in practice, we weren’t quite on the same page.

Frankly, it’s probably a normal reaction to what happens in the course of doing business. We got busy. We were rolling out the second year of the aha moment campaign, we had successfully launched our new web series and we were in a constant state of development. Heads were down and we were cranking out the work product. What happens, however, when the heads are down too much is that the fun starts to wane. The impromptu brainstorming stops. The “reason for being” takes a hit. As long as the train doesn’t ever get totally derailed, though, things can be fixed. Heads can be picked up. Sometimes, you just need a swift kick in the ass to make that happen.

So, thank you Small Agency Awards. We’re not entering your contest, but, frankly, with your help, we’ve already won. We’ll just have to learn to live with the same ol’ boring email signatures.