Opinion

Why hard-to-win awards are good awards

tim burrowes landscapeThis year’s Mumbrella Awards are going to be tougher to enter than ever before. Which makes winning one worth even more. As the call for entries goes live, Tim Burrowes explains the changes for this year.

Please don’t hate me.

I hear a common complaint about some industry awards, and I’m afraid it’s mostly my fault.

About seven years ago, I oversaw the first couple of years of the B&T Awards. In some categories, I introduced a new idea into the market – finalists were invited to present in person to the jury. I’ll explain my reasoning in a moment.

So when I launched the Mumbrella Awards, we introduced a similar process in some categories.

Funnily enough, people who have been through the process with the B&T Awards sometimes moan about it to me, unaware that I was to blame.

So let me explain my thinking – and why we plan to increase people’s stress levels even further with the Mumbrella Awards this year.

First, let me acknowledge this: sitting with your team in an anonymous hotel corridor waiting to talk to a jury is a stressful process. And that’s before you go in and present, let alone take the tough questions that follow.

Mumbrella Awards 2014 logo

It’s quite hard to organise too. Rounding up high calibre jurors, and wrangling the top ranks of most of the industry into the same place on the same day is a big ask.

This year though, we’re going even further. Every one of our categories will be judged this way. If you’re going to win, you’re going to need to persuade a jury to shortlist you based on your written claims – and then you’re going to need to look them in the eye and convince them all over again that you should win.

So why do we do it this way? Because, in my view, the quality of the result is improved.

Over the years, I’ve heard a lot of juries debate a lot of entries. A common complaint from the jury is when they struggle to know whether to believe a claim. My advice has always been to shortlist based on the entry’s claims, and to only select a winner if you are 100 per cent convinced.

A face-to-face presentation gives the jury that opportunity to be convinced. Or not.

In addition, I’ve heard juries frustrated at written entries and unable to pick a winner. In one category where that occurred last year I was convinced that if the finalists were in the room, they would have easily been able to overcome the doubts. But instead, no winner was awarded.

Conversely, I’ve never seen a jury which didn’t find a worthy winner when it gets to spend time with finalists face-to-face.

And most importantly, when you put finalists in front of the jury (so long as you recruit the right people) they tend to get the result right. I’m proud to say that while a couple of other industry awards have thrown up very odd winners in recent years, I can proudly stand behind all the verdicts of our jurors.

We’re going further yet though. For the last couple of years, we’ve been the only awards where a senior panel of jurors has toured the offices of the finalists for creative agency of the year. Last year this jury covered Sydney, Auckland and Melbourne. For us it wasn’t a cheap process (the entry fees certainly didn’t cover the jury’s flights and hotels, but it meant that we could be certain we picked the right winner and really understood what made them tick.)

And this year, we’re expanding to a second roving jury. We’ll also be touring the offices of the media agency of the year finalists.

And we won’t just be basing our juries in Sydney. In conjunction with our sister site Mumbrella Asia, we’ll be judging the regional creative network of the year, regional media network of the year and the new category of regional PR network of the year in Singapore. That jury will be captained by the redoubtable Darren Woolley.

Meanwhile, there are new categories too – including recognition of the fast growing area of content marketing, and for digital services company of the year.

We’ve also, with the support of industry charity Un Ltd, created the new category of pro bono campaign of the year.

And for individuals, we will be recognising the newcomer of the year.

Also, we’re retiring a couple of categories. Post production house of the year got little support last year, perhaps reflecting the state of the production sector. And thinker of the year is also not returning. Hopefully those who fancy themselves as a thinker will concentrate their efforts on the returning Mumbrella Award for Insight.

Meanwhile, we’ve maintained the price of entry (although late entries will cost you more now).

However, one element of the Mumbrella Awards will be significantly more straightforward this year. We’ve built a brand new awards site, which involves direct entry of text. Production values will no longer be a factor.

I agree with those who argue that there are too many industry awards, and people will have to be increasingly strategic about where they invest their resource into entering. I believe the ones that thrive will be the ones where winning actually means something.

Mumbrella Awards 2013 Room

I do hope you enter. The judging process will be hard work. But imagine how you’ll feel if you pick up a trophy at The Star on the night of June 5. And best of all, everyone will know you deserved it.

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