In a world where validation matters a lot, a key question that has haunted the advertising industry is what is the role of awards and why is it important to win? The advertising industry currently has a host of international and national awards. While Cannes Lions, D&AD (Pencils), The One Show with its golden pencil, Effie besides the Clio Awards, among others, are internationally acclaimed marketing awards, at home, there are the ABBYs, Kyoorius Creative Awards, Effie India, to name a few. Not to mention, several publications too have their awards. Industry stakeholders believe that despite consuming most of the marketing budgets, awards do matter. “One way of looking at it is how they inspire.  How are there platforms that celebrate the industry’s work?  I think it’s important to step back and acknowledge the best works of the industry, in a given year. If you look back, D&AD has been in existence for more than 60 years, add to that our archives, and I believe it’s almost a time stamp of where the creative industry used to be at a particular point. It’s also a historical reference point for people, for them to be able to navigate around where they want to go in the future,” Paul Drake, director, D&AD, told BrandWagon Online.