Case-study videos and the veneer of amazing achievement

This is going to be the fourth post we've published about award bait in the last couple weeks. You should feel grateful, because unlike in the past few years, we've directed our pal Ad Nut not to catalog every single example that comes our way. With this post, I decided I needed to step in, because while Ad Nut is great at being vaguely sarcastic, this case needed more investigation than we can reasonably expect from a squirrel—no matter how witty and elequent said squirrel may be. Quick reminder: We're not using "award bait' as a pejorative; some material that's meant to win awards is perfectly fine, but some...not so much.

So, this is a piece of work from DDB Singapore for the Genesis School For Special Education. As you can see from the above video, the agency worked with the school on an app intended to help autistic children interact more with their family members. 

While the press release provided some details, it left a lot unclear, so I asked series of questions and got answers from a DDB spokesperson. You can see the entire exchange below.

If you read the release and the Q&A, which I encourage you to do, you'll see that the effort seems fairly serious and robust. But you're also likely to conclude, like I did, that it's not a project that can lay claim to any great success—at least not yet. The results so far are limited at best.

Which is totally normal and fine. With any kind of clinical intervention, it's difficult and time-consuming to do the kind of careful, controlled testing that's required in order to really be sure your efforts are having a positive impact. This is why medicines and medical devices take forever to come to market, and it's why peer review and reproduction of results by independent researchers are bedrock elements of the scientific method. 

Anyway, it's great that, unlike some award-bait we've seen in the past, this looks to be a genuine, heartfelt effort. All evidence points to an agency that's helping to investigate something alongside a client that has expertise and connections but probably not a lot in the way of resources. They're putting serious effort into it together, and planning to sustain that effort over time. They've also been careful, in the release and the Q&A, not to inflate their claims. You'll note that they're not actually saying the app improves children's lives, merely that they "showed significant engagement" (in other words, they played with it) and that their parents gave positive feedback about the experience.  

So all in all, this is about as good as it gets in terms of "award bait".

Now here comes the inevitable "but".

But, the agency still needed a case-study video to burnish its reputation and to enter awards shows. And because case-study videos are made to capture the attention of jurors who have to review thousands of case-study videos, a video that says, "We're working on something promising and the initial results are encouraging, but we can't really say much yet" is not going to cut it.

Therefore, the video makes a series of carefully crafted statements that make it seem—if you don't listen too carefully or think too hard—that this app is changing the world. We're told that this is "a tale about how technology and creativity can truly change lives", and the video asks "How do we turn their love for digital devices into an opportunity for learning?"

So there's a gap between the reality of what's actually being done (worthy work!)  and the thin veneer of amazing achievement that the agency apparently feels compelled to create. It's just tiresome, for everyone involved. No one likes a braggart. And this whole practice makes agencies look desperate to gin up attention. Worse, that desperation tends to devalue the actual work agencies do, which is almost always valuable, sometimes impressive, from time to time inspiring and on rare ocassions world-altering.

I don't blame DDB, or any agency, for trying to win awards, or for striving to help with important social issues while they try to do so—as long as they're genuinely working to help people and not, say, claiming diapers can cure depression or delivering fried chicken in wee boats or claiming a non-existent ability to watch over migrants at sea. I also fully acknowledge that award entries are a revenue stream for Campaign Asia-Pacific.

But it would be nice if everyone—agencies and jurors and journalists—would focus more on reality and less on artifice. If we'd acknowledge that problems like autism and climate change and prejudice and whatever else are hard to solve. If we'd apply more scepticism and dig deeper into the details to judge whether such efforts are worthy of awards or even attention. If the breathless, "we're saving the world" claims, and especially the formulaic case-study videos, would be retired.

RELATED

• Gaming therapy for autistic kids, one dragon at a time (April 2019)
• 'These children are special' says Thai autism awareness ad (April 2018)
• Samsung project helps people with autism run a restaurant independently (April 2018)
• Samsung project develops app to help autistic kids connect (January 2015)

CREDITS

Client: Genesis School For Special Education (Singapore)
Advertising Agency: DDB, Singapore
Group Chief Creative Officer: Chris Chiu
Creative Director: Iu La Lueta
Creative Group Heads: Qihao Shum, Firrdaus Yusoff
Art Director:  Sithum Walter
Copywriter: Samantha Liew
Account Management: Melvin Kuek, Yih Cheng Yak
Project Management: Kylie Wong
Tech Support: Herry Budiyanto, Chun Guan Neo, Mike Tran
Production Support: Bettina Feng, Deborah Chia

Matthew Miller is Campaign Asia-Pacific's managing editor.