Tee Up for Trophies: Here’s Why You Need a Purpose-Built Awards Strategy

Here’s my submission for the ‘understatement of the year’ award: There sure are a lot of award shows. 

It’s become such a complex and intricate industry in its own right that many companies benefit from employing a dedicated awards manager who takes care of entries, applications, and orchestrates an awards strategy. This makes a lot of sense. I know of at least one awards manager who, upon taking up their role at a large agency, was shocked to discover the amount of money and time which was being wasted by putting work forward for categories and shows which it had no business entering, let alone winning. This wasn’t because the work was bad; far from it. It was simply that the shows themselves were irrelevant for the agency’s output. 

Of course, not every company has the luxury of hiring an awards manager. That’s a problem, given it means that smaller agencies, production companies, post houses, audio studios and more are exposed to exactly the same risks, without the expert guidance to shepherd them. That’s why having a thoughtful, and purpose-built, awards strategy really is for everyone. While it may not increase your chances of winning any specific award, it can certainly decrease your chances of losing those you enter. And there are three ways in which that strategy should play out. 

Budget 

If you attempted to enter every award show that the industry has to offer, you’d be bankrupt. Most shows (though not, it must be said, The Immortal Awards) charge participants on a per-entry basis. So the more work you have which stands a chance of winning, the more you’re going to have to pay. At a time when there simply isn’t a lot of money sloshing around, that’s not an ideal situation. 

Therefore, it pays to be efficient with your entries. If you’re entering a piece of work into 24 different categories, with each one charging £500, you’re suddenly paying £12,000 on one piece of work which has no guarantee of winning anything. 

It’s worth thinking carefully about which categories (in any given show) really apply to the work you want to enter. Looking holistically at all the various different awards shows which are out there, you might decide that it’s worth entering more shows but fewer categories within them. This also feeds into the next part of your bespoke strategy: 

Volume 

There is a dizzying number of awards shows out there in 2024. So many that there literally isn’t time in the day to try and enter them all. And a lot of those shows just aren’t relevant to certain companies, handing out awards on specific grounds which - with the best will in the world - may not apply to the work you’re most proud of. 

This is one of the reasons why we designed The Immortal Awards around the idea of submitting up to five projects per year with absolutely no categories, all included in the price of an LBB membership. It’s clean in two respects: Firstly in how we don’t put a cost on each entry - members are welcome to enter between one to five projects at no extra spend. And secondly in how we offer the ultimate simplicity; with no confusing categories, our jury is asking one core question, “is this Immortal?”. In combination, that adds up to help with the third and final part of a successful awards strategy: 

Time 

An inevitable consequence of the modern awards ecosystem’s complexity is that it sucks up time from hopeful entrants. That’s not just because of the number of shows that exist, but also the often-cumbersome rules they implement for entries. 

Not every company will have someone on staff who’s able to knock up a winning case study - not to mention a persuasive essay on why a particular piece of work should triumph in every category. All of these supporting materials are a considerable time sink. And to top it off, many companies might not have legal ownership of all the relevant files, and therefore will be unable to provide them alongside an entry. All of this is why we make supporting materials optional for Immortals entrants.

So again, it pays to think carefully and prioritise efficiency. In this respect, timing is important. Whilst there will always be awards happening throughout the year, you’ll generally find that May to June is peak ‘awards season’, culminating with Cannes Lions. Comparatively, The Immortal Awards sit at the end of the previous year, with judging in October, November, and December. If you have your eye on a few gongs in peak awards season, the Immortals can be a great testing ground. The campaigns we award all tend to enjoy continued success throughout the following summer’s shows. So if you’ve done well with us, you can be more confident of justifying the summer entry fees. 

Add all of that up, and you get a sense of why it’s so important to have a bespoke awards strategy. And perhaps the best starting point in shaping that strategy is to take a step back and ask why you want to win awards in the first place. 

As an awards director, I’ve had plenty of folk tell me that they don’t see the value in winning them - particularly in the context of the hassle and resources it can take to enter them. To these people, my response is always the same: Fair enough. 

But for those who are interested, the benefits include business retention, talent retention, new business wins, and game-changing new hires. And then there’s the less tangible stuff: Morale, and the feeling that you’re part of a team which is both growing and doing its best work. This stuff matters, and my hunch has always been that a simplified awards process would make those benefits more obvious to all. 

So whilst there may be no simplifying the awards industry itself, a purpose-built strategy can simplify your engagement with it. With this year’s peak season having just passed, there’s no better time to take stock and design a strategy which will work for you.