The LBB Insider's Guide To Advertising Awards 2024
Awards are an important part of any industry, not just advertising, serving quite simply as a celebration of the best an industry has to offer. That said, advertising awards are truly part of the DNA of the communications industry, with global, regional and local shows prevalent across the world, as well specialist organisations recognising specific skills and more all-encompassing competitions.
It’s difficult to pinpoint exactly when awards began to be handed out for the best campaigns. If you’ve ever watched ‘Mad Men’ - and we wholeheartedly recommend you do if you haven’t - you’ll have seen Don Draper proudly receive both a Clio Award and an ANDY - the award show of the Advertising Club of New York - at some point during the show. The Clios kicked off in 1959, while the ANDYs were established five years later in 1964.
Earlier even than that, the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, arguably the most revered competition for the advertising industry and still its most important annual, global networking event, was first hosted in 1954. At the time, it was named the International Advertising Film Festival and actually took place in Venice, before moving to Monte Carlo in year two, and Cannes in year three. After that, the event alternated between Venice and Cannes, but has firmly called the latter its home since 1984.
Above (left to right): Awards directors Emma Wilkie and Paul Monan at The Immortal Awards 2023
“Specifically in advertising, awards are hugely important in setting benchmarks for future creative projects to strive for and, hopefully, surpass,” says Paul Monan, awards director at The Immortal Awards. “Better work will deliver better results for clients which, at the end of the day, is what advertising creators - be it agency, production or post - are employed to do.”
“The advertising industry recognises the value of having an annual showcase of outstanding work that highlights creative excellence,” adds Emma Wilkie, awards director at The Immortal Awards and former managing director of The Gunn Report. “Identifying, applauding and awarding best-in-class examples sets the industry benchmark for the year ahead. Awards are important in terms of education and inspiration for people learning the business as well as a reward for those people and companies that are pushing the boundaries of creativity to produce effective campaigns that resonate with consumers.”
Why Do Advertising Awards Matter to the Industry So Much?
Entering awards shows can be daunting. There are a lot of them and within them there are lots of points of entry - some have seemingly endless categories and subcategories. For most awards shows, you have to pay to enter work into every single one of those categories. And it all adds up quickly.
So, ad industry award ROI is a fierce debate across all facets of the industry, especially during challenging economic times such as 2024, when budgets are uncertain and dwindling. The vast majority of award shows charge a fee to enter - some particularly hefty. What’s more, entrants will more often than not be charged for each entry. So, if a campaign is being entered into multiple categories of an award show, the entrant company will be charged multiple times. As such, when it’s advertising creators and makers awarding fellow creators and makers, it’s difficult to fully articulate the effect it could have on a business from a financial standpoint.
That said, there is little doubt that for individuals and organisations, award wins can open doors for new opportunities and for the industry as a whole, they are a sensible way to measure the overall health of advertising and its output. What’s more, an important shift in recent years has been clients’ interest in attending and winning awards. If you’ve attended Cannes Lions within the past five years, you will almost certainly have noticed an uptick in the amount of brand representatives - often accompanied by their agencies - present on the Croisette and taking part in speaking engagements throughout the festival.
“For any company, big or small, the ROI on winning an award can be measured in a plethora of ways,” says Paul. “But remember, there will probably be plenty more losses than wins - and that’s the same for every company out there!
“They can lead to intangible but recognisable benefits such as increased positivity and confidence in a person, team or company which can boost the quality of future work. And they can also lead to more tangible results such as new client wins, existing client retention, new talent attraction and existing talent retention.” For more information on how to leverage award wins for marketing and new business, click here.
The importance of ROI has in recent years led to awards that recognise a campaign’s effectiveness growing in importance and popularity. Many of the big, global shows now have dedicated categories for recognising campaigns that directly led to a growth in sales for the client, and the Effie Awards are an important moment within most national markets around the world. Les Binet, a world-renowned expert in the field of marketing effectiveness and group head of effectiveness at adam&eveDDB, has written extensively about the subject, notably in his work with Peter Field. According to the IPA, who awards Les The President’s Medal in recognition of his contribution to the subject of effectiveness, Unilever CMO Keith Weed said, “Les and Peter have made a huge contribution to our understanding of how marketing drives growth and profit for brands. Marketers everywhere should pay close attention.” Read more of Les and Peter’s work here.
The debate around ROI has led to the launch of some free-to-enter shows, such as Little Black Book’s The Immortal Awards. All members of Little Black Book have five entries included in membership. Emma Wilkie, co-director of the Immortal Awards, has witnessed the evolution from within and has shared more of her thoughts on ROI of advertising award shows here. An expert in advertising industry awards and creative excellence and former publisher of The Gunn Report which she helped transform into a globally recognised authority and benchmark for best in class advertising.
Which Advertising Awards to Enter - And What to Consider When Doing So
The particular award shows that deserve your attention - and often money - depends on the type of work you want to enter and the type of company that you are representing. For example, some awards more specifically for advertising agencies exist, while other more specialist shows, such as post production awards that recognise craft or digital-focused competitions also exist.
If you work for a company that hasn’t previously dabbled in awards, think about local, regional and global shows - we've listed a rundown here. Many local advertising associations, such as the 4A’s and the AICP in the USA or the IPA and APA in the UK, run their own national competitions and will recommend specific creative advertising awards they deem important for their member companies. Regionally, competitions such as Eurobest for Europe, Dubai Lynx for MEA, and Ad Stars, Adfest and Spikes Asia for APAC could be worthy of your attention. Globally, some big players include Cannes Lions, The Immortal Awards, The One Show, and D&AD, but do consider that their bar for success is often higher.
Specialist advertising award shows are also worth delving deeper into. If you work in production or post production - a sometimes overlooked section of the industry at more all-encompassing competitions - craft-focused organisations, such as Ciclope, are appreciated by the makers of advertising and are seen as a benchmark for commercial filmmaking. That said, many bigger shows do have craft specific categories. Promax Awards recognise entertainment marketing, the Webbys award the best of the internet, and the Annie Awards select the best animated television ad each year.
There are many more we’ve been unable to mention here - so, we recommend doing your research into the best advertising awards for you and your company, and creating an internal awards calendar. The calendar can also help with keeping track of entry deadlines. These deadlines are important, naturally, for ensuring you don’t miss your chance to become an award-winning advertising agency, but also because there are often early bird discounts for getting that work entered in good time.
Entry requirements differ widely from show to show. Some entry systems will take up much more of a person’s time than others. A common piece of supporting information is a case study video. They are a great tool for succinctly bringing large creative concepts together, adding context to and summarising results of creative campaigns.
Paul, as director of The Immortal Awards, has watched thousands of case studies over the years, and believes the better, more successful cases are typically direct, which helps them cut through the clutter. “It’s easy to include too much information,” he says. “Too many stats, facts and metrics which are confusing or meaningless. Jurors may well be reviewing hundreds of case studies on a jury, so keeping them engaged or entertained is imperative. What is new about this work? Why is it different from other entries? How did it do its job for the brand?
“Ultimately, it is about the work that the case is supporting (and all good jurors know that).”
But case study films are also a slightly controversial aspect of the advertising awards industry. According to Emma, making these two-minute films has become somewhat of an industry in itself, and some would argue has become overly important, and more creative and expensive than the actual work it is describing. “Should you have a case study video to explain an outdoor poster campaign?,” asks Emma. “If it needs explaining to a jury then surely the same would apply to the audience it’s aimed at? Should a case study contain results unless it’s entered into an effectiveness category? There should be more rules around what should and shouldn’t be included.
“That said, a jury often has so many entries to deliberate that a well-executed and simple but punchy explanation of the work is always going to grab the attention and fare better than a complicated and badly edited case study with a lot of unnecessary information.”
Award Show Juries
As we established above, every award show is different, with different focuses on specialisms and ever-widening categories. As such, juries could be looking through one of many - and ever-increasing - different lenses.
Juries may be role or craft specific, such as looking at the best of music composition, sound design, cinematography, or media use. They could also be medium specific, such as best film, or category specific, such as best piece of work for an automotive brand. Often, award shows will judge using an amalgamation of these criteria - it really depends on how the work is entered and eventually awarded.
Other competitions, such as The Immortal Awards, devise their juries based on location. They aim to have holistic juries with a blend of brand, agency, production and post production experts. So, for example, the Indian jury for The Immortal Awards will be made up of professionals from all corners of the Indian advertising industry.
Awards bodies will look to find leaders in the jury’s respective criteria. They will want the best person for the role and can look at their career history, seniority, whether they’ve made award winning work in the past, amongst a whole host of differing criteria. So, if you are pitching someone for jury duty, make sure you are aware of what a show is looking to award and how they do it.
The London International Awards (LIA) similarly strives to ensure work is judged fairly with diverse perspectives by inviting representation from across regions, companies, networks, holding companies, independent companies, and clients - no two jurors on the same panel are allowed to be from the same company or network. It also promotes full transparency by granting press, global excellence teams and young creatives (mentees involved in its Creative LIAisons program) access into the jury rooms for observation during judging.
Importantly, most major award shows are working as hard as they can to ensure diversity and balance. Gender, ethnic and age representation are all actively being considered when jurors are selected. It is extremely worthwhile to consider this when pitching jurors to any award show.
Above: The MEA jury for The Immortal Awards 2023
How Are Advertising Awards Judged?
Sitting inside a jury room is a real privilege, whether you’re sitting on the jury or you’re an administrator. It’s where the tough questions are asked; where different perspectives can make or break a project’s chances of winning.
With every show being different, there is no one single way in which a jury room operates. However, generally shortlisted work is reviewed (again and again if needed), discussions are held and decisions will be made on which prizes will be handed out. The shortlist is most often drawn up by an initial round of judging that generally takes place online and individually. The next, meatier round of judging takes the form of a group discussion/debate, ideally in person but it does sometimes happen remotely via video conferencing.
For example, The Immortal Awards splits jury days into two sessions. In the first session, the jurors will watch the reel of shortlisted work and vote individually on the level of prize they think it should receive. The group then breaks and returns for the second session, in which the awards team shares the group’s scores and hands over to the jury to discuss the projects and re-vote where necessary on which prize level they think the projects deserve. By the end of the second session, the group will have collectively agreed on which projects will receive a prize and of which level.
Often, there is a jury president who runs the room, whose job should be to ensure all projects are debated fairly, that all jurors are participating equally and having their voices heard, and that individuals do not manipulate proceedings.
An advertising awards topic that has been discussed heavily in recent years is scam entries. Scam entries would largely be recognised as projects that have been engineered or created purely or mostly with winning awards in mind. The motives for creating these sorts of projects are to benefit the company making the work as much, if not more, than to deliver results for the client.
Those administering awards shows will be on the lookout for projects like that, with entry systems designed to check the validity and legitimacy of the work being entered. There will often need to be proof that work has been launched publicly - has run in certain places or for certain durations - to satisfy entry criteria. Each award show will deal with these sorts of entries in their own way. Some will contact the entrant client for more information and there is risk of the campaign being disqualified.
If you find yourself in the situation where your own piece of work is being discussed, some award shows make you leave the room so you can’t impact a neutral decision. Others, such as The Immortal Awards, will allow you to stay in the room and give any context that is desired from other jurors. Award shows will also be on the lookout for jurors that are unfairly backing work from not just their own agency, but also the network they represent or even the country in which they are based.
Finally - and why we’re all here - when it comes to winning, there is naturally no secret sauce. The most important element is, unsurprisingly, a well crafted, simple to understand piece of work. Ultimately, you need to convince a juror or jury of the reason you believe your entry deserves to win. The clearer you can communicate exactly why a piece of work excels as part of a particular award show or category, the better chance you have of winning. As we discussed earlier, for better or worse, a case study video can play an important role here.
In recent years, campaigns for social good causes, which often offer greater scope for creative exploration when compared to a project more focused on ‘selling’ a product, have performed particularly well at many of the industry’s biggest and most revered award shows. This trend does appear to be turning - purpose driven marketing is still very much at the forefront of advertising in 2024, but jurors are becoming evermore savvy at identifying when a social cause actually aligns with a brand’s values or is shoehorned in for the sake of creating a particular campaign.
Getting Your Advertising Award Entries Started
If your company is a member of Little Black Book, you will have 5x entries to our global award show, the Immortal Awards. Read more about the Immortal Awards and how and when to enter here. If your company is not a member but you’d like to enter the Immortal Awards you can email membership@lbbonline.com or purchase membership here.
