New York advertising awards wants agencies to stop with the BS
By James Herring on Saturday, January 18, 2025
The New York Festivals Advertising Awards just opened its doors for the 2025 competition, and they’re not here to play nice.
They’ve dropped a savage new campaign titled “No BS Allowed” a direct challenge to the advertising industry to quit the self-congratulatory nonsense and focus on making work that actually matters.
The jury are coming for everything the industry holds dear: fake metrics, manufactured hype, and the endless sea of pointless “positive sentiment.”
Their bold message? Agency “BS” might make for a flashy case study, but out in the real world, it’s about as useful as fertiliser.
Agency Grey New York cooked up a mockumentary-style film called “100% Bull**”*, where actual farmers are handed bags of manure plastered with classic ad-world jargon like “Made-Up Tweets,” “Inflated Impressions,” and “Lots and Lots of Positive Sentiment.”
The farmers, blissfully clueless about marketing buzzwords, dissect the absurd labels with deadpan honesty while considering if this “premium-grade manure” might help their crops.
“New York Festivals has always been about celebrating creativity that pushes boundaries and drives progress,” said Scott Rose, President at New York Festivals. “This campaign is a reminder that our jury wants to rise above the noise of awards gamification and honor the true achievement: the courage, creativity, and dedication it takes to bring powerful ideas to life, inspire action, and shape the future of our industry.”