Awards Categories

See the list below to find out what the judges will be looking for and what you need to enter for each category.

Download the full list of categories

Best Communications Strategy

Engage: This category celebrates brands that demonstrate clear consumer insight and engage the target audience through the development of a brilliant strategy and precise execution.

Best Contribution to a Campaign by a Media Owner

Partner: This category recognises the role of media owners in their work to provide advertiser clients effective connections with their audiences. Judges are looking for inspired applications of ideas that should be driven by the creative solutions team of the media owner. Entries will be judged on the level of creative thinking, consumer insight, and success for the client. The winning campaign could be a multi-platform strategy or a single marketing execution. The entering company must be the media owner.

Best Engagement Strategy

Engage: Recognising the campaign that can demonstrate the most successful engagement strategy with tangible audience-related results for the client. This category can include a campaign on any media channel that can prove engagement at its heart - the jury will place a greater emphasis on audience-related results for entries and will be looking for proof of engagement through metrics such as 'time spent with brand', 'number of interactions with the brand', 'number of downloads', 'number of comments', and so on.

Best Entertainment Platform

Entertain: This category recognises the power of a great communications platform (traditional and emerging) and the thinking required to maximise its value. Core to the creation of a successful platform is the ability to entertain the consumer to retain attention.

Best Experiential Campaign

Activate: Here, we recognise brands that deliver an experiential channel for consumers via events, stunt advertising, guerrilla marketing, projections or roadshows, or through sponsorship of an existing property. Events can be virtual or physical.

Best Social Media Campaign

Rewarding innovation in social media, the winning campaign should be able to demonstrate great results. Entries will be judged on the creative use of social platforms and a sound understanding of online consumer behaviour. Judges will be looking for examples of fantastic consumer-driven campaigns, community building, targeting, engagement, and conversational marketing strategies.

Best Targeted Campaign

Target: This category rewards campaigns that have identified and reached specific audiences. This includes all demographics, from youth to silver surfers, and also includes specific target groups (from pet owners to ice-cream lovers). Any campaign that can be proven to target a specific audience will be considered.

Best Use of Content

Create: The search for any campaign that has used creation of content as part of its strategy can include everything from ad-funded TV deals to branded music projects. Judges will also be looking for innovative creation of intellectual property (IP) and examples of how this is leveraged.

Best Use of the Digital Landscape

Interact: This category is seeking entries that have understood and integrated themselves into the digital landscape. It covers all digital media, from web, mobile, IPTV, gaming and search, through to affiliate marketing. Judges are looking for great examples of interaction using digital media's unique properties.

Best Use of Emerging Technology

Invent: Awarded to the campaign that is seen to exploit new technology "straight from the lab" to its full potential in the marketing world. The winning campaign will be able to demonstrate a good brand/technology fit and show innovation in the use of the new technology to reach an audience. This category is open to any existing media channel, and any new one created by the use of the technology. Judges will be focssing on the innovative nature of the technology and how it has been applied to a marketing challenge.

Best Use of Mobile

Personal: Innovative use of the mobile channel to reach and engage consumers is key in this category. Any form of mobile media will be considered, including mobile Apps, .mobi sites, mobile content or any form of mobile advertising, provided they show how the advertiser has used mobile in a creative and engaging way to obtain great results on clear objectives.

The Creative Use of Media Award

Innovate: This category rewards the innovative use of media, whether based on the channel, placement or format. It is seeking examples of brands using media to create cut-through. Judges will be looking for the best examples of guerrilla, ambient and stunt-based marketing. They will not be looking for the use of new technology per se, but will reward the interesting use of digital technologies.

The Effectiveness Award

Sell: The campaign that has achieved the most against its stated sales targets will triumph in this category. It will focus on effectiveness of a campaign above all other considerations. All entries must include figures showing the campaign's direct impact on clearly defined sales KPIs that must be declared in the submission. The results section of the entry will account for 40% of the jury's scores.

The Public Service Award

Benefit: This category is about delivering benefit to the consumer - be it a service, a tangible product, or supporting a worthy cause - while also generating goodwill or sales for the brand.

Grand Prix Awards

Agency of the Year

This Award will be presented to the Agency that has displayed an outstanding level of achievement in this year's Festival of Media Awards - based on a calculation of entries appearing in the shortlist, and in the list of highly commended and winning campaign entries. Shortlisted entries will receive 1 point, highly commended will receive 3 points and winners will receive 7 points.

Where an Agency has won or has been highly commended for the same campaign, in more than one category, only the highest level of points obtained will be counted towards the Agency of the Year award. For example, if the same campaign has been highly commended in one category and is a winner in another category, the Agency will only be awarded the points for the win towards the Agency of the Year award.

This award recognises the Agency that has excelled in the Festival of Media Awards across multiple clients and campaigns.

(See full Terms & Conditions for further information)

Network of the Year

The Network of the year will be agency network that has shown consistent achievement across the entering categories - based on a calculation of entries appearing in the shortlist, and in the list of highly commended and winning campaign entries. Shortlisted entries will receive 1 point, highly commended will receive 3 points and winners will receive 7 points. For an agency network to be eligible, they must have entries from 3 or more agency offices from their global network.

Where Networks have won or have been highly commended for the same campaign, in more than one category, only the highest level of points obtained will be counted towards the Network of the Year award. For example, if the same campaign has been highly commended in one category and is a winner in another category, the Network will only be awarded the points for the win towards the Network of the Year award.

This award recognises the Network that has excelled in the Festival of Media Awards across multiple clients and campaigns.

(See full Terms & Conditions for further information)

Advertiser of the Year

The Advertiser of the Year Award will be presented to the advertiser whose brands have appeared consistently in the shortlist and in the list of commended and winning campaign entries - demonstrating consistent excellence in creative and innovative media thinking. Shortlisted entries will receive 1 point, highly commended will receive 3 points and winners will receive 7 points.

Where Advertisers have won or have been highly commended for the same campaign, in more than one category, only the highest level of points obtained will be counted towards the Advertiser of the Year award. For example, if the same campaign has been highly commended in one category and is a winner in another category, the Advertiser will only be awarded the points for the win towards the Advertiser of the Year award.

This award recognises the Advertiser that has excelled in the Festival of Media Awards across multiple campaigns.

(See full Terms & Conditions for further information)

Campaign of the Year

Campaign of the Year, a new award for 2012, will be awarded to the campaign that has excelled above all others. This will be calculated on a points system, based on entries appearing in the shortlist, and the list of highly commended and winning entries. Agencies are awarded 1 point for a shortlisted campaign, 3 points for a highly commended campaign and 7 points for a winning campaign. Each campaign will only be awarded the maximum points it achieves in each category, but unlike the Agency, Network and Advertiser of the Year awards, Agencies accrue points for every campaign that is shortlisted, highly commended or wins in a category, regardless of the number of different categories it is entered into.

(See full Terms & Conditions for further information)