Top Tips

Notes to help you win

Entries will be limited to 1 side of A4 in Arial font size 12 for the first round of judging. Please see the advised entry format below.

Your Entry Format

Format should cover the following:

1)        Company Name

2)        Advertiser

3)        Agencies/suppliers and media owners involved

Please note that Media Brand entries should comply to one side of A4 but not necessarily these headings. Again, this should be in the font Arial, at 12 point.

4)        Background
(No more than four or five paragraphs)
 
For agency categories, tell us about the client, the brief they set for you, along with aims and objectives. Sum up the main business issue you were helping them with.

For media owner categories, tell us about the agency or advertiser you were approaching and what they were trying to achieve.

For the research categories, tell us about the market or subject you chose to cover, and the reasons for doing the research.

5)        The thinking and making it happen
This is the most important part of your entry. In 5 or 6 paragraphs you need to make the judges understand what was so special about your thinking, and the spark of inspiration that drove it across bought, owned and earned media. Explain how you went about persuading the client and what you did to see the idea through.

As they mark the papers, judges will be thinking about:

• Insight
• Idea
• Implementation
• Impact/efficacy

For research categories, give an overview of the methodology you used. Judges here will be looking for evidence that data has been used in an original or innovative way to generate a tangible result.

For Econometrics judges will be looking for creative or original use of econometrics to guide a campaign.

For Research Insight they will be looking for evidence of how you reached insights from research.

6)        Results

For media owner and agency categories, what evidence do you have that your work helped your client's business performance?

For research categories, give the most interesting findings and explain how this contributed to commercial advantage.

Rising Star

For the Rising Star categories, all we are asking for from you at this stage is a 300 word personal statement detailing your career accomplishments to date, and what you are aiming for in the future. Tell us why you should be Media Week's Rising Star. The only requirements are that you must be 30 and under at time of entry, and you cannot have been in the shortlist for the Rising Star Award previously.

Agency of the Year and Sales Team of the Year

For these two categories ONLY, entries may be up to two sides of A4.

To enter these awards, you must enter two additional categories. We are looking for entry submissions to include the following information about how your company has performed over the past year. The entry period is 1 June 2012 - 1 June 2013.

Agency of the Year

• Entrant must provide examples of organic growth during the qualifying period
• New business billings in the UK
• Lost and retained clients
• Examples of senior staff hires that have contributed to the entrants business
• Financial evidence of how they have fared as an agency in the industry during the qualifying period
• Contributions to the industry and biggest achievements in the qualifying period
• Two client testimonials – no longer than a paragraph each

Sales team of the year

• How big is the sales team?
• How many of the team have been there under a year, between one and three years and over three years?
• What new business has the team won during the qualifying period?
• How much revenue and contribution has the team made to the overall business this year? And how can this be measured in the context of the overall marketplace?
• What has been the team’s biggest achievement?
• Are there any special projects and initiatives such as training programmes and ideas for developing staff?
• Two client testimonials – no longer than a paragraph each

Hints and Tips

1. Attention to detail
Read the above entry advice carefully. It breaks down the format of your entry and explains exactly what we are looking for. It's much easier to write a successful entry if you know exactly what is required. Also remember we only want one side of A4 per entry. This should be in the Arial font, 12 point size.

2. Less is more
This year we have simplified the initial entry for the shortlisting stage. We're looking for entries that have strong media ideas that are commercially powerful. If you've got a strong idea you'll hopefully find it's easy to articulate, but you'll still need to put a lot of effort into the initial submission, so give yourself plenty of time.

3. Prove your case
Your initial entry will need to give highlights only to substantiate that the idea was commercially powerful. We're looking for the link between the idea and the business result rather than 'here's the idea' / 'here are the results' with no obvious connection.

4. Big ideas
Don't be limited to think that big ideas are just creative media ideas. Mostly big ideas challenge the behavioural norm of the industry behaviour in general or a specific advertised category. A TV campaign that invested the entire budget in ITV peak time, for example, could be a worthy entry, if you prove its effect.

5. Teamwork
Don't leave it to one person to put together your entries. The best entries are put together by a team of people and don't forget to get a 'fresh pair of eyes' to read through your entry before you submit it, this will ensure any errors are identified by you and not the judges.

6. Get yourself noticed
Keep your entries clear, concise, specific and fun but remember they need to be well written. The judges will see hundreds of entries, make sure yours stand out for the right reasons.

7. Let the client know
It would be a shame to have done all the work only to be told by the client at the twelfth hour that you can't enter it. Get senior client approval, and even involvement, to help your case.

8. Be prepared
Although the initial entry is simplified to an A4 sheet of paper, those shortlisted entries will have the opportunity to record a 5 minute (or less) DVD to give flesh to their idea in person. You will have just over a month from shortlisting stage to the DVD deadline so think ahead.

10. Ask Media Week for help
If in doubt contact us. Please call Melanie Sawbridge on 020 8267 4161.

The closing date is Thursday 13 June 2013.
Entrants accept that any information in the entry may be published in any format Media Week sees fit before, during or after the awards ceremony.
Entries that go beyond a single page of A4 will be disqualified.

Entries that include the use of illegal media such as flyposting or pirate radio will be disqualified.
The judges' decisions are final.

We reserve the right to amend the rules during the judging process if the chairman of judges deems it necessary. In exceptional circumstances, where new information emerges about an entry after the judging process, the chairman of the judges has the power to revise the decision.

Teams that are unable to attend a judging session or provide a filmed presentation when requested will be disqualified.

The bulk of the work highlighted must have been carried out in the 12 months leading up to June 2013.

Winners will be announced at an awards ceremony at Grosvenor House Hotel, London on 24 October 2013.