How To Win A Dma Award

How to win awards, bag the grand prix, ruin your new shoes and get promoted

Goldwag consultancy limitedWanda Goldwag

Goldwag consultancy limited

Presentation agenda

• Who am I?

• How to identify what to enter?

• Choosing the category?

• How to present the work?

• Some invaluable tips


Who am I?

DMA awards

• Member of the awards committee

• Client , agency and supplier experience

• Chaired the awards twice

Real life

• Smedvig Venture Capital

• True North Human Capital

• Challenge Consultancy

• You at Work Holdings

• Performing Right Society

• Postcomm Commissioner


WHAT MAKES THE DMA AWARDS SO SPECIAL?

STRATEGY CREATIVITY RESULTS


When should we start thinking about the DMA awards?

• Keep awards in mind from the moment the work is briefed

• It is EVERYONE‟s responsibility to think about creating award winning work –not just creative‟s. Some new categories this year are aimed at planners and media buyers


How to win a DMA award

Identify the work with an absolutely spot on strategy

Where the creative and strategy are intertwined and the results were good and measurable


Ask yourself

Is it distinctive?

Is it groundbreaking?

Is it industry leading?


How to identify which work to enter?

Judges fall into two camps, creative focussed v results focussed - you must satisfy both

Remember A „great strategy‟ with poor results and poor creative was not a great strategy


How to select candidate work?

• Your first filter is creative

• Ask everyone in the agency to nominate the work (that they‟ve worked on or seen) that has wowed them creatively

• Including the receptionist

• Then check that it has solid results to support it

• If it‟s great work the planner will be able to provide the solid strategic thinking behind it


Remember

• DMA‟s shouldn‟t be an exercise in post-rationalisation or fiction. The judges can spot it a mile off

• So, there‟s no power point masterpiece that the client agreed to. Just the work

• Where did the idea behind the activity come from? A pub conversation for example? Something must have stimulated it? What was the nugget? What was the strategic imperative that ran through the work?


100‟s of entries, so

Clarity=

More time for the judges to understand your work


Choosing the category

The expensive, time consuming approach

• Throw everything at it and see what sticks

• Entering every bit of work into every possible category

• But do you want to write (and pay for) 100 entries?


Choosing the category

A more considered approach• Pick your best work

• Based on creative and results. Or at least just creative (can go into creative categories)

• Be ruthless -mediocre work won‟t shine through.

• Be objective, just because the people who‟ve worked on it thinks it‟s great isn‟t enough

• Sometimes they don‟t think it is, (maybe it‟s been a painful job) but it might be and they‟re not seeing it


Tactics to consider.

• Consider grouping work together

• Investigate the opportunity to present longer term strategic thinking by showing the progress of a campaign

• Avoid clashes within category

• Except where two client‟s work needs to go into the same category


Which category?

• 1 category is judged at a time and most judges judge only 1 category

• So consider entering your work into several categories, as long as they‟re appropriate


Dumb mistakes

• Make sure it fits the criteria, read the rules

• There will be at least one category that your work fits, make sure it‟s in the right one (sounds obvious but it doesn‟t always happen)

• Read, re-read and re-read again the category criteria

• And if you‟re not sure, call Janet Attwater for advice


Craft the entries

• They take weeks (so if you haven‟t started yet, get a move on!)

• Not some half hearted last minute panic

• If a planner writes them get a writer to sprinkle magic dust on them

• Put together the entry so all the many elements make perfect sense


How to present it in its best light

• Don‟t cut and paste

• If you‟re entering more than one category don‟t replicate the entry across each

• Think carefully about each category‟s criteria and what you‟re likely to be competing against


Who to involve?

• Get an objective view

• Get people who aren‟t familiar with the account to read your entry.

• Do they understand it?


How to “manage” the judges

• Think about how to interest the judges

• They may have 40 entries to read. How can you make them „sit up and listen‟?

• The introductory section (convince them about „what is wonderful about this work‟) are your most important words. Try and cover your strategy, creative solution and results

• Sustain their interest. Be clear and concise. Make sure there are no mistakes -if you can‟t be bothered with your entry, why should a judge be?


Improving your chances

• Study the form book

• Choose your categories wisely

• Form completion is not an administrative task

• Don‟t skimp on the results

• Avoid hyperbole, self-referentialism and bull***t

• Above all, think about how the work is judged…and present it accordingly

Thank you

Documents

How To Win A Dma Award