- Channel Einstein: “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler”
- Be brutally honest – is this work really good enough to standout in a pile of awards? You’re much better off entering one crack hot piece of work that has a good chance than flooding the awards with some that are weaker
- Edit ruthlessly. “I wish you had written more” are words you’ll never hear from a judge.
- Can you demonstrate “empathy, focus & surprise? Great work always embodies all three, while the mediocre, the self-serving and the wildly off-brief will invariably display just two.” Helen Edwards, Marketing Magazine
- Convene a ‘murder board’ – a group of people who’ve previously had nothing to do with the entry to rigorously critique & anticipate difficult questions. You can guarantee that if you don’t do this before the submission, the judges will.
- Think about Spock vs. Captain T. Kirk – some judges prefer the rational hard facts & the data front and centre, others judge on gut feel and emotion. Make sure your entry covers off both.
- You’re in PR! Ask the client, consumers, media, and bloggers to endorse your efforts and underline its effectiveness. Data is good, people bring it to life.
- Refrain from hyperbole – ‘the Internet exploded, early adopter buzz was massive’. It seeds doubt about honesty and undermines what is true.
- Think about how you can goose bump your audience.
- Edit for jargon and keep it simple. Imagine explaining the campaign to your granny over a nice cup of tea.
Claire has served as a judge on many different creativity awards shows including on the PR Jury at Cannes Lions in 2014 reviewing nearly 2,000 pieces of creative work and as a mentor as part of the training faculty at Cannes Lions to the Young Lions competitions for several years. Claire has also judged for the Sabre and PR Week Awards and teams under her stewardship have won many awards.
We run a ‘How to write a killer award entry’ training course which we time for you to workshop your entry before the main award shows deadlines. Get in touch to find out when the next session will run.