Awards Gone Wild

We at Applied Arts have had the, um, distinct pleasure of being in the firing line of Zulu Alpha Kilo’s skewering. The shop that doesn’t shy away from iconoclasm had a real jury made up of consumers judging our awards post-professional judging in 2013. The results were intriguing and made for some excellent viewing here.

For strategy magazine’s 2021 Agency of the Year awards show, Zulu once again focused on awards and realness, or should we say lack thereof. In “Awards Gone Wild” the lengths to which agencies will go to win awards, embellished case studies, fake clients, ads that ran without client approval, etc. are satirized, as is the industry as whole and the awards that celebrate it. Hey, wait a minute…

“This year, it really hit home how much time, effort and money we all spend on awards shows. In speaking with leaders in other agencies, there were times where it felt like we’re all working in the case study business, not the advertising business.” Laughs Zulu Alpha Kilo founder & CCO Zak Mroueh. “With this video, we wanted to poke fun at ourselves as an industry, while also starting a conversation about getting back to awarding real work.”

Here at Applied Arts, we love real work and don’t mind the occasional ribbing.

CREDITS:

Agency: Zulu Alpha Kilo
Chief Creative Officer & Creative Director: Zak Mroueh
ACD/Art Director: Michael Siegers
ACD/Writer: Jonah Flynn
Account Team: Kara Oddi, Amy Nguyen
Producer: Lauren Schell, Jac Benoit
Production House: Zulubot
Director: Zak Mroueh
Post Production Company: Zulubot
Executive Producer: Tom Evans
Director of Photography: Tony Edgar 
Second Camera: Billy Stefanidis
Editor: Brian Noon
Casting: Jigsaw Casting- Shasta Lutz
Online: Felipe Chaparro 
Colour: Alter Ego Post
Colourist: Conor Fisher
Audio Recordist: Stephen Dranitsaris
Audio Engineer: Dino Cuzzolino