John Gilbert, Freelance Creative Director/Senior Copywriter

John Gavin Gilbert

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Awards are supposed to matter in this business.

Folks are programmed to care about the One Show Gold Pencil, Effie, Graphis Silver, Tellys, Best of Show at the National Education Marketing Awards, and more than 160 national, regional and local Addys all stuffed into boxes and bookshelves in my office. People who are not my mom are usually impressed by my work being featured in Adweek, Creativity, Luerzer’s Archive, and The Wall Street Journal.

But while creative awards have their purpose, I don't like to be defined by them. Awards don’t make people feel anything—other than the fact that I need to dust my bookshelves.

Instead, I prefer to define my success project by project. For example, by creating the world's first Twitter-activated beer tap. Or redefining tuna from a comfort food into a healthy, portable snack. Or by shattering the Pennsylvania record for organ donor registration. By launching a teeny-tiny food movement, out-announcering play-by-play announcers, inventing digital tools that prevent teen drinking & driving, by making a salt substitute sexy, combining banking with meditation, and by getting people to (sort of) celebrate broccoli.

Let’s work together and make something worth feeling some sort of good about. Maybe we’ll win one of those award thingies along the way. But if we do, I still won't dust it.

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