Effective Recognition

While creating an ad for a local soccer tournaments program, I was having trouble finding a design I liked. Trying to decide whether to settle on this one particular layout I decided to seek advice from a graphic designer friend of mine. This friend works in the graphic design department at Velcro and is very good at what he does. I greatly respect his judgment and value his opinions when it comes to design work. He looked over it and we decided to make some changes, but in the course of that he questioned the benefit I had used as the tagline, "Quality Awards Build Brighter Futures." The conversation we had follows:

Mike: I like where you are trying to go with the tag line but I'm not sure quality is the right word...

I know why you used it...

me: ummmm.... i don't know what to replace it with

Mike: but does the quality of the award really play into the accomplishment

I guess it does if I think about it

me: quality awards that reward the accomplishment have a greater impact than a crappy award

Mike: true

me: someone that achieves and gets junk is not likely to try harder the next time, or may even become complacent and feel that he doesn't need to try as hard as he did at the time the award was won.

Mike: yea I'm sold on it

me: whereas someone who achieves and gets a quality award not only strives to do better and achieve again but also will talk about the accomplishment and what the award meant to them.

Quality awards reward achievement, and junk does not, it's as simple as that. You don't get to the front of the pack by playing second rate, and top tiered athletes or even those that try their hardest and give it their all do not want junk. Junk is ineffective for any purpose. Quality recognition helps to build brighter futures and inspires achievement.

What are your thoughts?