What's it called when you get a type of award because you didn't get the award you were supposed to get?
Solution 1:
A non-winner might be awarded a
consolation prize
NOUNA prize given to a competitor who just fails to win or who has come last.
A two-week holiday in Cape Town was the consolation prize.
From Lexico.
The word consolation itself means
The comfort received by a person after a loss or disappointment.
Solution 2:
This is a participation award/trophy/ribbon. According to Wikipedia:
A participation trophy is a trophy given to children (usually) who participate in a sporting event but do not finish in first, second or third place, and so would not normally be eligible for a trophy. It is frequently associated with millennials, those of Generation Y.
When it's not an official reward, you can also use the expression "got an A for effort". From Farlex via TFD:
A verbal acknowledgement of appreciation for attempting a task, even if it did not produce a successful result.
You forgot to sand the wood before you painted it, but I'll give you an A for effort since you tried to help.
I have also heard names for an award for last place, but those aren't typically given as a pat on the back. See What is a "prize" for last place called?
Solution 3:
Weather Vane’s answer, consolation prize, is what first came to my mind. You could also say that the judges made it up to the recipient for not giving her the award she truly deserved. A consolation prize is always of lower value, but we make up for not giving someone a prize he deserved by giving him another of equal value.
An award for the second-best finisher is also a runner-up award or silver medal. An American might sometimes ironically call a person who comes in second Miss Congeniality, the title of the runner-up in the Miss America beauty pageant. Someone who always does well but never wins is “always a bridesmaid, never a bride.” Thus, a special award given to honor someone who never won the annual award is a bridesmaid award. Or, more politely, a lifetime achievement award.
In some other contexts, we would use make-up as an adjective. When a referee sees a replay, realizes he got a call wrong, and calls the next play wrong for the other team to make up for it, balance the scales, and even things out, that’s a make-up call. We don’t say that for awards, though. A “make-up award” is an award for cosmetics.
This is not a participation trophy, because everyone gets one of those. It’s also not a booby prize. Those are given out mockingly, although it is possible to accept one with grace and dignity, or at least good humor. It’s not a wooden spoon either, as that is for last place, not the person who should have won.
Other commenters have suggested, replacement trophy, and that could work. It could be confused for a new trophy commissioned to replace one that has been lost or stolen.
ETA:
It’s not a well-known saying, but thinking about it, the best metaphor for this in American culture might be the Academy Award for Best Actress. The Oscars are notorious for repeatedly giving it to the actress who most people felt deserved to win the year before, when they voted to give it instead to the woman who’d deserved to win the year before that.
Solution 4:
- Runner Up Prize
- Runner Up Award
https://boardgamestips.com/popular/what-is-runner-up-prize/
What is runner up prize? English Language Learners Definition of runner-up : a person or team that does not win first place in a competition but that does well enough to get a prize especially : a person or team that finishes in second place. See the full definition for runner-up in the English Language Learners Dictionary. runner-up. noun.
https://www.dictionary.com/browse/runner-up
noun, plural run·ners-up. the competitor, player, or team finishing in second place, as in a race, contest, or tournament. runners-up, the competitors who do not win a contest but who place ahead of the majority of the contestants and share in prizes or honors, as those who place second, third, and fourth, or in the top ten.
Solution 5:
Depends on the award. I'd start with calling it a substitute, anything else is more denigrating variants of it really.
E.g. I know of people who got awarded the second highest military honours during the Vietnam war because the people writing the citations were aware that because of the political situation and/or rank of the soldier involved they'd not pass the political process involved with granting the congressional medal of honour. I'd not call that a booby price, participation trophy, or some other denigrating thing at all and neither does the US military (these people are awarded almost the same honours and ceremony when visiting a US military base as any CMH recipient for example).
Especially a participation trophy is something worthless that you get simply for taking part. A campaign ribbon in the military would be such, for example.