Want to increase your chances of being an Engage Award winner?

Potential Marketing Week Engage Award winners need to stand out from the pack in the quality and credibility of their entries.

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While the criteria for each award and what needs to be demonstrated can be found here, advice from previous Engage Award winners should prove inspiring for your entry and could make the vital difference.

Fiat took the Brand Innovator award in 2011 and Brane Bosancic, corporate marketing manager, says those entering the Engage Awards this year need to think about what new, original insights there are for the marketing and advertising community.

He says: “There are many projects that are interesting, highly creative and effective, but at the end of the day, the winning cases will be those that have told the reader something he didn’t know before.”

Transport for London won the Market Research category and research and insight manager Ian Pring says that in terms of creating a compelling Marketing Week Engage Awards entry: “Write it like a storyteller. Narrative and structure are very important. But so are rigour and thoroughness. Marrying these things together isn’t easy when communicating research findings.”

David Gamble, creative director at Saint@RKCR/Y&R, the agency that helped the Victoria & Albert Museum to win the Design award, says that entrants should be selective about which categories to enter and concise when explaining their objectives and what the campaign achieved.

“You only have a few minutes at most to get the judges’ attention, so make it count. You need to put yourself in the judges’ shoes and distance yourself from the project. They may not have seen your work and it may be the 1000th piece they’ve judged that day,” he says.

Founder of Sponsorship winner at Bulldog, Simon Duffy adds: “Take your time to build a compelling case, be brave and don’t be afraid to think about things differently to everybody else.”

The Economist showed a clean pair of heels in the Media category brand communications manager Caroline Marrow says: “It may be fairly obvious, but make sure you spend plenty of time building up clear and concrete evidence of the Return On Investment. Then, once you have written the entry, get someone in the company who has nothing to do with marketing or the campaign to read it, their feedback can prove incredibly useful, and help you strip out some of the marketing-speak.”

All these tips can help you fashion a potentially award-winning entry. The deadline is fast-approaching so make good use of them and enter the MarketingWeek Engage Awards now.

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