Sharing experience on how to be successful in the Association for the Measurement of Communication (AMEC) annual awards.

1. To be successful requires commitment
• The Awards must be a business priority
• You need a compelling reason to enter
• Ensure someone internally is absolutely responsible for
Award entries
• Have an internal and external plan to leverage
entries, and if you’re successful, awards. Make the most
of it!
• If you don’t have the time, then don’t waste your time

2. Process
• Start as early in the cycle as possible
• Ensure someone internally is absolutely responsible for
Award entries
• Set up an internal committee to pre-judge your potential
entries
• Be absolutely sure that you can get client approval to
submit an entry– this can take a significant amount of
time – take your clients on the journey

3. How to pre-judge a potential award winner
• Ensure the client’s goals are clearly stated
• Ensure that the results of the analysis can be tied back
directly and obviously to the client’s goals
• Look for an interesting angle to the research, or even
pick “left field” entries
– Remember the judges are busy and you need to stand out
• Look for innovation in your analysis
• Critically, did the analysis elicit change – did it contribute
to a change in the client’s strategic direction or plans?
• Ensure a breadth of media analysed – if it’s just print, it
has to be brilliant

4. The Award entry itself
• Get your best writer to create the entry
• Give them the time to do their best work
• Make sure you pick the right category for entry
• Never give the judges an easy opportunity to exclude
you
– Never break the entry rules – i.e. more than a two page
submission
– Focus on the basics – no spelling mistakes

5. The Award entry itself (cont.)
• Make sure you answer clearly and succinctly the criteria
in the entry
• Only provide critical supporting material – keep it short
• Include a supporting quote from the client if
possible, about how the analysis improved their
situation, not how great you are!
• Ensure multiple people internally review the entry before
submission
• Enter early, don’t leave it to the last minute

6. Enjoy the process
• If it’s a chore it will show in your entry and you’ll be
unlikely to be shortlisted
• Get your teams involved, get management involved
• Be proud of the quality of your work, communicate
internally the successes, make it part of your
organisation’s “story”
• Ensure you share the knowledge of what’s worked and
hasn’t
• If you’re a winner, celebrate!