The Drum Awards for Marketing judges on how to write a winning report
What information do judges want to see in your reports? And what don’t they want to see? Should your entry take a certain tone and do you need to include a video about the campaign? We ask the experts...
Top tips for writing winning entries
The Drum recently put a whole host of questions to some of our 2024 judges for The Drum Awards for Marketing, hosting three live webinars to help provide as much information as possible to entrants of this year’s global marketing awards scheme.
Offering up insights during the online sessions were jury members from our EMEA, Americas and APAC competitions, with Dunkin’ CMO Hamza Ayub, Storycatchers creative director Dee Atkin, Central Retail CMO Rvisra Chirathivat, Wishfin CMO Reem Saied, LinkedIn vice-president of brand marketing Santi Pochat and Octagon creative director Vanessa Tan all joining us.
You can rewatch each of the webinars now, while below, we have picked out some of the top advice from our judges to provide a best practice guide to filling out your awards entries.
Make a strong start
Getting your entry started is often the hardest part of any awards entry and, all too often, people fall into the trap of starting by talking about themselves. It’s often the same when agencies pitch for new business and is a bugbear of Hamza Ayub at Dunkin’.
He says: “Everybody often starts by talking about themselves. ‘Hi, our name is this, we do this and we have done that for 10 years...’ I’m sorry, but nobody cares. So, in your entry, when you’re pitching your case, first start with the problem you faced, then get into your solution. Only bring the agency up at the end and outline why you were the credible agency to solve this problem for the client.”
Tell a great story and be authentic
The strongest awards entries always tell a great story – they have a clear beginning, middle and end. Or, in awards parlance, they outline a problem/challenge, a solution/execution and then the final results and outcomes.
“To stand out, make sure your entries present a clear and compelling story that outlines your specific marketing challenge,” says Hamza. “The executive summary is crucial and judges always start there, so provide a clear and engaging overview of the entry, including the objectives, that X factor and the results.”
He adds: “An entry also has to be authentic. And by that, I mean the end result has come out of a genuine business requirement. I need to see a genuine brief from the client. We are not looking for entries made purely to win awards. The authenticity factor is what I give a lot of weight to when judging.”
Be exceptional
At the initial entry stage, think long and hard about the category that you are entering. Does your campaign fit comfortably into that category? Also, ask yourself the tough question: is your work really exceptional and worthy of winning an award?
“Winning work for me has to create some sort of exceptional achievement and create an impact,” says Rvisra Chirathivat at Central Retail. “The work has to be memorable and also distinct from the rest of the entries. That’s what I’m looking for. In terms of criteria, I look at strategic planning, how it has been planned and if it’s well executed and shows innovation. I think the most important part is creating a sustainable business impact. Does the campaign drive or change or create impact for the business?”
Reem Saeid at Wishfin outlines what will grab his attention, saying: “When you see an entry and you look at the idea and think, ‘Oh, why didn’t I think of that?’ That’s the hallmark of a great idea and something I look for when judging.”
Be disciplined – less is often more
When writing an awards entry, it can be tempting to throw every little detail, piece of information or insight, every piece of data or results statistic in there, but this can sometimes be overwhelming for a judge. Remember, judges are coming to your marketing case study cold for the first time and trying to take in every single detail can often confuse and get in the way of them understanding your story.
As Santi Pochat at LinkedIn says: “I think the adage ‘less is more’ comes into play here. Sometimes, we have the instinct to include every single bit and bob of the campaign, but you end up with a lot of fluff that doesn’t actually drive the story forward. You should be thinking about your entry and making sure your story is very crisp and clear.”
Include a strong video that explains your campaign
When entering The Drum Awards for Marketing, it is possible to upload a video to support written entries and, in recent years, this has become an increasingly important element of the entry process. So, how can entrants make sure their video makes the maximum impact?
Chirathivat says: “Make sure you include a video pitch, but make sure you show your campaign and the thinking behind it, not just your ad or your creative work. A lot of people just put their ad campaign video in there. They don’t talk about what impact it had. A strong video helps your entry to stand out and the videos are also used as part of the final awards show, so they are good for your own agency promotion, too.”
Do your results well and make sure they’re relevant
Obviously, the results section is incredibly important to any entry, but can often be the hardest. What do you include and what do you leave out? How do you express them in the most positive light and how do you ensure that the results you present make sense and are consistent with the client’s initial objectives?
Storycatchers’ Dee Atkin says: “You can’t hide shonky results; the judges are not stupid. You can’t polish a turd, but what you can do is make it very clear what you were aiming to achieve and how you delivered against the client’s objectives. That sounds basic, but I’ve seen so many case studies that just don’t do that. You get to the results and you’re asking yourself, ‘What were the objectives?’ and is that what they were setting out to do?”
Get the basics right!
Last, but no means least, just get the basics right. There’s nothing more off-putting for a judge than reading an entry that is littered with typos, bad grammar and nonsensical punctuation.
Awards expert Lesley Grant says: “Pay attention to spelling, grammar and formatting. Make sure that you’re continually proofreading what you’re entering. Collaborate with your team and involve everyone who was involved in making your campaign successful.”
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