Celebrating the best in British digital – since 1985. Be a part of digital marketing’s party of the year, the BIMA Awards. With 33 categories celebrating the best work the UK has to offer, the BIMAs are the longest-running UK awards with a digital focus. Bagging an illustrious BIMA award is no easy feat, so here are our top tips for writing a winning awards submission. Hear from past winners, judges and the BIMA team on how you can polish your entries to maximise your success.

1. How to win a BIMA
EVENT

2. Username: RLGUEST
Password: DrillH@ll999
#BIMAawards

3. Speakers
Matt Pilgrim
BIMA Awards Chair
Bridget Beale
Managing Director at BIMA
Zoe Abrams
British Red Cross
BIMA Awards 2015 Judge
Julie Bowyer
Rufus Leonard
2015 Agency of the Year

4. Managing Director, BIMA
Bridget Beale

5. Insights from behind the scenes
How to Win a BIMA Award

6. Eligibility
 Be digital or have a substantial and significant digital component.
 Be the work of a British agency, office or organisation and/or be for the British
market.
 Have been launched, re-developed or shown substantial, measurable progress
during the eligibility period which runs from 2 May 2015. * With one exception…

7. The basics
Info you’ll need to assemble:
1. Synopsis – circa 150 words
2. Screenshots – 3 high res shots of the project
3. Release date
4. Access – URL to remain live to Oct 2016

8. Judging criteria
You need to score well on each of these to make it through the BIMA judging:
 Strategy & Insight
 Innovation
 Execution
 Effectiveness

9. Elements of a winning entry
Take the judges on a journey:
1. Brief / business challenge
2. Insight
3. Solution

10. Optional extras
Up to you to include or not:
1. Collaboration credits
2. Video
3. Budget
4. Customer journey stage*
5. Premium Award submission

11. Pitfalls to avoid
Judges can be cynical – don’t give them reason to mistrust you:
1. Be specific. For big projects by more than one stakeholder, direct the judges
towards your specific part in it.
2. Share the results. Judges love hard data and they love to see measurable
business results.
3. Proof copy & remove barriers. Check for typos and grammatical errors. Make sure
links are live. Provide passwords / download codes if needed.

12. “If your experiment needs a
statistician, you need a better
experiment.”
Ernest Rutherford

14. Better to be judged first or last?
Last
Judged first [project name starts with ‘#’ or other non-letter or ‘A’]:
 One-tenth of entries & no trophy winners in 2015
 10% of entries and only 5% of winners across 2013-15
Projects starting with ‘T’ are most successful:
 25% of winners from 2013 to 2015, against 17% of entries

15. Winning words

16. Is release date a factor?
No
Less than 6 months of results data:
 52% of winners in 2015

17. Winning length
Average words in a BIMA Award-winning entry, 2013 to 2015:
443
In 2015, average wordcount was 613.

18. Winning length
Winning entries under 500 words, 2013 – 2015:
75%
In 2015, this was 52%

19. To video or not to video
Winning entries with a case study video in 2015:
83%

20. Case study video duration
Average video length:
2:14
Shortest video was 1 minute. Longest was 4:18.

21. Executive Director of Communications & Engagement at British Red Cross
BIMA Awards 2015 Judge
Zoe Abrams

22. The bit in-between submitting and winning
Judging

23. 1. Treat your judges well
How to keep a BIMA Awards judge happy?

24. 2. Short is sweet
How to keep a BIMA Awards judge happy?

25. 3. Meaningful measurement = MAGIC
How to keep a BIMA Awards judge happy?

26. Judges love it
Providing effectiveness data

27. 4. Dot the i's and cross the t's
How to keep a BIMA Awards judge happy?

28. 5. Put your best work in the right category
How to keep a BIMA Awards judge happy?

29. HAVE FUN!
Finally…

30. PR and Marketing Manager at Rufus Leonard
Agency of the Year 2015 Winner
Julie Bowyer

31. Agency of the Year
How to win…

32. A few things….

33. Don’t listen to the naysayers!
Tip 1

34. Question: What do all of these people have in common?
Tip 2
Answer: They’ve all had a great twelve months!

35. Surprising but… don’t always copywrite!
Tip 3

36. Good relationships are important
Tip 4

37. Writing an award-winning submission

38. • Round-up paragraph – sell yourself!
• Wins – sign of business growth/social proof! Ultimately what
its all about..
• Work
• Hires
• Talent achievements/other BIMA accolades
• Partnerships/new initiatives
• New products and services
• Next 12 months
• Recent success - initiatives/events/work
• Other
Structure…

39. Some
specifics…
The power of suggestion
Priming
Social Proof
Pushing digital agenda
Curiosity
Scale

40. Some
specifics…
Industry firsts
Authority
Timely & relevant/social proof
Social proof

41. Any questions?
Enter your best work at www.bimaawards.com