Judges

Top Tips from the Judges

Gerry White, JustEat 

1. Don’t waffle, make sure it is meat rather than buzz word stuff, if it feels like the paragraph doesn’t say anything all it does is frustrate smart judges. Concise answers are often better with a fuller explanation below.
2. Answer the question, all too often it feels like the question has been missed – going off tangent is fine but front load the answer to the question, we understand you often want to say something else something that really is important to you and your entry but our marking criteria means we need to be able to answer the question. In programming there is something called ‘rubber duck debugging’ imagine you are explaining this to a rubber duck it works well for programmers, the same principle would apply to award entries.
3. Don’t underestimate the judges, if you say you have done xyz, we can check – we have the knowledge and experience to validate many claims, our knowledge and experience are suitably high enough for us to be able to validate almost all claims. Percentage increases are valid but backed up with enough numbers that we understand it was a real impact not a low number to a still low number.

Daniel Evans, MSL Group

1. Tell a story! Numbers, clicks, growth, client satisfaction etc are all good as evidence to support why you should get an award, but they are not reasons in themselves.
2. Don’t be afraid of telling the bad as well as the good. good work in difficult circumstances, or challenges overcome, are just as award-worthy as effortless brilliance.
3. Remember that to be worthy of an award you need to stand out, not just be creditable. Emphasise what is exceptional about what you are submitting, including what constitutes the “normal” that you are standing out against. the judges may not be as familiar with your specific area of business as you are.

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