I’ll make no bones about it – we win a lot of awards. Every month, there’s a new success to celebrate, a new statuette on our awards table. I’m not saying this to show off – it’s the truth.

But why do we bother?

When I was thinking about writing this blog – the first blog on our brand new website, FYI – my original thought was, ‘Actually, why do we?’

Awards applications take days to draft. They involve in-depth research into the magazine, client and business relationship. They need to be subbed and reworded and edited and covered in red pen. It’s an intensive process and each application has to be carefully crafted individually. Point being – it’s a lot of work.

Here’s why we do it.

On the client side, there are obvious benefits. We’re a customer publishing agency, so our magazines aren’t just about having few nice articles, or sticking in a few pretty pictures. They need to be effective. They have to generate a return on investment for the client.

When we win awards for producing an effective magazine, it justifies the client spend on the magazine – it means that it’s doing the job it’s supposed to. And it’s important that it’s not just us saying that: it’s a panel of impartial, industry heavyweights who think that we are doing a great job. Money can’t buy that kind of kudos.

And then there’s the internal side of winning awards. No one wants to work for a second-rate company. They want to work for a company that’s at the top of its game. Our writers, designers, sales team, even our finance department see these awards as a recognition of all the hard work they’ve put in to Think. And I’m not just talking about a one-off award for a single title. We win awards for lots of different magazines across the trade, professional, membership and charity sectors. That shows consistency across the board in the quality of work we produce.

Here’s one other thing no one tells you about awards applications – they force you to take a real, unemotional look at your work. It’s a kind of internal audit of a title. You get to see where the holes are in your data, it helps you pull together testimonials and evidence that proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that it’s a great, great publication. That’s invaluable stuff: we can give that information to the client, and we can use that for future pitches.

Yes, awards are very inspirational too. We get to pit our magazines against other agencies’ efforts and see how we come up. And it looks great to have a long list of awards on [our website]. But there’s also one more crucial, marvellous thing about winning an award.

It’s a great excuse for a knees-up.