The Drum Awards for Marketing - Extended Deadline

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By The Drum Team, Editorial

February 3, 2017 | 4 min read

Here are our top tips on how to write a winning submission.

It’s awards night. The work yours is up against has just been announced and yours is miles better. Engagement? Check. Execution? Flawless. ROI? Off the scale. Award? In the bag.

Only the campaign you’ve poured your heart and soul into doesn’t take the prize. Worse still is that it’s gone to a campaign you’ve never even heard of. The reason? It’s because their entry carefully articulated the engagement, execution and ROI around the campaign, encapsulating the story perfectly and impressing the judges. Never fear, The Drum has you covered.

We rounded up some of the finest judges and previous winners from across our awards to reveal what they look out for in an award entry form so that you never miss out on the top prize again. Check out the video from the day here to get a feel for some of the learnings, but to give you a head start, here's just some of the key takeaways:

Brevity is key

The real art of writing an awards entry is being “concise, very precise and brevity,” explained Ross Sleight, chief strategy officer at Somo Global.

That’s easier said than done when you’ve got to squeeze a six-month project into a finite number of worlds. Hema Chauhan, senior marketing manager at The Leading Edge, who was behind TMW Unlimited’s multi-award winning report last year for the Calm, Unilever and Lynx campaign, advised: “Start early - work out where the gaps are in your story. That information is somewhere so make sure you get it.

“An award-winning entry has a compelling story that makes the judges fall in love.”

Team GB’s head of marketing, Leah Davis, also added: "Write the skeleton of what you’re trying to communicate and be ruthless. Be as creative in your entry as you would in your campaign.

“Bring alive your awards submission but without arrogance.”

It’s all about the story – but never lie

So much of writing a good awards entry is down to the narrative and the data.

“Use data to back up your results and never lie - big words and mistruths will never work. Put the actual figures in. You can trust us judges,” said Sleight. “No particular data source is more important that the other but third party is always good. Define the terms that you are using though.”

Davis expanded on this point, advising that a strong entry has to clearly show the value it has delivered – an obvious but often missed objective. “You have to demonstrate what you have achieved as well as justifying the money you are spending on marketing,” she added.

Involve the client

“The client testimonials are key - make sure they know the specifics and use them in a pointed way,” explained Davis.

Sleight added: “There is a real benefit of having your clients involved in the entry written process. It’s a joint piece of work and therefore a joint win.”

Good luck with your entries this year and if you ever need help in selecting the right category or choosing which awards to enter, then get in touch with my team - they are always happy to help.

A full list of The Drum awards can be found here.

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