Nineteen years in this industry will teach you a few things.
Like the fact that there are two kinds of people: those who do the work, and those who make a case study about it. Sometimes, they’re the same person. Most of the time, they’re not.
I’ve seen creatives who build the kind of work that quietly keeps a business alive. And I’ve seen others who steal work from Latin America, ship it off to an international awards show, win, get caught, get publicly humiliated, and ten years later walk around forgiven, as if collective amnesia is part of the job description.
Let’s not pretend awards are anything more than what they really are… a stamp to show clients when your portfolio isn’t strong enough to speak for itself.
They’re the LinkedIn equivalent of “I swear I’m good at my job.”
And yes, I’ve been played in the game. Once, an agency I competed with (now friends, as time makes enemies irrelevant) used me… Yes, me… in one of their award-winning case studies.
The twist? They used me as a “conservative outraged Arab man.”
Imagine that.
An atheist-leaning, queer, Arab man who’s spent years fighting for women’s rights, labelled as the very caricature I’ve spent most of my career challenging.
If any of those WARC judges had taken five seconds to Google my name, they’d have known that. But that’s the thing, isn’t it? You don’t fact-check when you’re busy applauding.
I’m not bitter. I’ve been around too long for that. But I am tired of the industry pretending this game isn’t rigged.
The work is what matters. The impact. The actual change. Not the clip-on trophy you show to a client when you’re trying to justify your fees.
Do the work. Let that be your legacy.
The rest is just decoration.
Moey writes here. 
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