Things worth knowing about the Mumbrella awards process
We’ve just announced the shortlist for the first ever Mumbrella Readers Choice Awards.
And like any new awards, it’s been something of a learning process.
I’ve already mentioned a couple of points of difference – not least, the fact that it is open to a reader vote rather than a small industry jury, and the fact that the awards ceremony will be live streamed. (Do make sure you stick next Thursday lunchtime in your diary!).
And another potentially controversial one is that we’ll also be giving a turkey of the year award for the ad the industry considers to be the worst of the year. In celebrating brilliance, it is worth recognising that sometimes there is uncreative work too. We’ve come up with that list ourselves, although there will also be an opportunity for readers to select their own.
And in one category – ad of the year – we have deviated from self-nomination only, and put forward some of the ads we consider to be the best of the year.
The reason for this is that we heard from one or two sources within ad agencies that they felt it was politically awkward to be seen to enter our awards, as one of our competitors was taking it quite personally. Although I’ve been assured that was a misunderstanding and have no reason to disbelieve that, some people nonetheless felt nervous about being first to jump even when they had good work.
But we want readers to have a choice from the year’s best ads, so for this category only, as ads speak for themselves, the list is a mixture of submissions and our own list.
Another issue we’ve faced that I’ve not previously experienced when I’ve been involved in other awards (not necessarily in this part of the world), is where we had mediocre entries in a particular category, it’s been possible to shortlist them anyway, and give them the chance for them to persuade a jury of their merits at the next stage. Here, we’ve had to be tougher than that – so in the marketing team of the year category we only had one entry that we considered strong enough to put in front of the readers. We’ve advised the team in question of that, and rather than be exposed to the slightly odd situation of being in a one horse race, they chose to withdraw, which we respect.
Meanwhile, perhaps the hardest category to shortlist was for media and marketing blog of the year. Several good ones didn’t make it.
Our voting begins tomorrow.
We’ll publish on the site every shortlisted entry. Then every subscriber to our email (who signed up before the end of last week) will get an email linking them to our voting system.
As well as the shortlisted entries, if readers do not feel any entry is strong enough, they will be able to select that option. If more than 50% did so in a category, the top placed entry will instead be highly commended. In any category where the voting between first and second is within 5%, then the second placed entry will be highly commended.
While comments will be open on all the entries, I’m planning to be tough on comments intending to sabotage entries, and astroturfing. For the next few days, I’ve switched our moderation settings – people who have never commented on Mumbrella before will be pre-moderated. If that doesn’t work, we will temporarily switch to pre-moderation of all comments. I want genuine debate, but I also want a fair fight, so I will be less liberal than usual in our comment policy. So please be reasoned in your comments.
And after the process is over I’ll chat to everyone who supported the awards (or wanted to but felt unable) about how we fine tune the process for next year. I’ll be delighted to hear your thoughts.
I’m delighted with the support we’ve received for our first awards, and excited with how much bigger we’ll be able to make it next year. But it’s a brand new process, so we’ve still got a lot to learn. I’m sure you’ll be able to help us with that.
Tim Burrowes
Tim Burrowes founded Mumbrella in 2008. He worked on Mumbrella until 2021. At various points he was editor, content director and editor-at-large.
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