How to win agency awards – 10 top tips
Even though the events themselves are currently restricted due to Coronavirus, the awards schemes have been in full swing online. I should know, I’ve judged the Prolific North Awards. UK App Awards and the Northern Marketing Awards in the past few months alone. Awards are here to stay. But how to win agency awards? It’s a question every agency owner has asked themselves at some point.
Despite my judging exploits, you might be surprised to learn I actually I have a love-hate relationship with awards…
I love the awards themselves. They’re great for the industry and great morale boosters for the teams that win them or get shortlisted. And let’s face it, we all need as much good news as we can get right now.
I hate it when agencies use the fact that they have won awards as the central part of their value proposition though. Please don’t do this. There must be something more unique or distinctive about you than awards. I do believe that awards can add authority to your offer. They can certainly act as a point of interest. They just shouldn’t be THE thing about your agency.
So what advice would I give agency owners on how to win awards? Building on the piece I wrote about the D-E-S-I-R-E to win last year, here’s my 9 top tips based on my recent judging experience.
1. Enter Awards(!)
The first piece of advice I have in how to win agency awards is simple; enter them! You’ve got to be in it to win it as the saying goes. The awards I’ve judged recently have generated a good number of submissions, but there was certainly room for more. Some categories were under represented and a lot of the same agency names appear year after year. All credit to these firms, but make sure you’re in the mix to give them some competition.
2. Enter a category you are capable of winning
There are usually plenty of categories to enter in the various awards schemes. Please choose your categories carefully. Whilst you might aspire to win “Global Agency of the Decade”, if you’ve only been in business for 18 months it’s unlikely to happen for a couple of years yet. However, that B2B campaign you’ve just completed for your biggest client that achieved stellar results on a modest budget is definitely worthy of entering “B2B campaign of the Year”. It might not be quite as high profile or glamourous, but its an award you can win. That’s how to win agency awards!
3. Enter award-winning material
Another obvious, but nevertheless an important piece of wisdom comes in the form of quality. Make sure your entry represents great work. At the very least make sure its the best work you’ve done. As much as I’m advocating that you enter awards, they will still be around next year. If you don’t have something that you believe worthy of not just getting you on the shortlist, but carrying home the prize (or at least getting it posted out to you), maybe wait until you have.
4. Objectives – Have them. Make them measurable. Exceed them.
It’s number 4 on this list, but it’s the number 1 frustration of both myself and all the award judges I speak to. To win agency awards, your campaign or agency simply must have clearly defined SMART objectives. In your entry, you must not only communicate these effectively but also clearly demonstrate how the objectives were reached and – ideally – exceeded. Without question, poor objectives lead to lower marks.
5. Make your submission count
A close second to poor objectives on the judges’ list of frustrations is when an agency goes to the time and expense of submitting an award but doesn’t make it count. Most awards have some form of word count on the entry form to stop the entries being too long. This is understandable, but the number of times I’ve seen the word count not even met frankly astounds me. It’s not about the number of words of course, but the quality of the submissions is often poorly thought through and lacking in impact. Get a copywriter or award consultant to write the entry for you, if you don’t think you can do it justice. Treat the entry form like a pitch, not an application form!
6. Answer the questions
Another simple piece of advice is to make sure you answer the questions(!) Your entry will be judged on your answers, not how much you want to tell the judges what a great team you have or just how much the client likes you. Just like in an exam, if you miss the main point of the question and go off on a tangent, you can easily lose vital marks.
7. Supporting material
Some award schemes allow you to supply supporting material in addition to the award entry form. Always do this if you are permitted to do so. Your entry will look poor and unfinished if you don’t submit additional material and the other agencies do. Remember to keep it short and to the point though. A single-page summary with some visuals is far more impactful than a 12-page pitch deck or strategy document.
8. Challenges – make them big and make them unique.
Some agency awards ask you to demonstrate how you’ve overcome challenges during the year. COVID-19 is likely to dominate this subject for a few years to come. If you do choose the impact of the pandemic, remember to show how you’ve done things differently to your peers. If you want to use other challenges to demonstrate your agency’s resilience then please choose an important subject. I’ve been through enough office moves to know they’re a pain, but changing offices is hardly a major test for a business like an agency these days.
9. Make it Simple for the Judges
I’m going to let you into a secret. I’ve judged 3 agency award schemes in the past 3 months. Each one has taken me over a day to complete the judging. At first, I thought it was just me until a fellow judge volunteered the fact that they took a day over a particular scheme as well. I’m not looking for sympathy here, my point is to make your entry as easy to understand and as brief as possible. Judges don’t have the time to sift through lots of complex information. If you help them to digest the entry easily, you will secure more marks.
10. Read the criteria
Finally, following on from my point above, you can make the judges lives a lot easier by reading the judging criteria. All award schemes publish these. When judging you can really tell which entries are from people that have read the brief and understand exactly what criteria the judges will be looking for.
Industry Rewards
The events sector is going through a particularly tough time at the moment. Although we can’t enjoy the social benefits of getting together over a few beers whilst we hear who has won, entering awards is still important for the industry and for your agency profile. I hope this article has given you some tips and reminders on how to win agency awards.
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