Media Channels

Digital entries

The Campaign Big Awards will reward excellence in digital advertising and marketing. Entrants will be judged against two key elements: creativity and excellence. Digital entries to the Campaign Big Awards should reflect the creative leap forward that the digital industry has taken in recent years. The digital industry itself demands awards that recognise the dual requirements of creativity and effectiveness.

The judges will be looking for the strength of the idea and the quality of execution in equal measure.  Owing to the ease with which data can be gathered from websites, entrants will be expected to provide evidence of the effectiveness of a campaign. It will interest the judges to see how the idea worked as a digital execution and how digital work may have been integrated with other media.

Each entry should be supported by a written submission of no more than 300 words describing:
• Brief of objectives
• Strategy
• Solution employed
• Evaluation, results and a summary of improvements to business performance

To include websites, microsites, online advertising, digital installations, interactive virals, viral films, mobile marketing and CDs/DVD ROMs and self promotion by network owners such as O2, BT, Vodafone, etc, or manufacturers such as Apple, Sony, Nokia, etc.

Direct entries

The underlying aim is to assess how creative ideas help to make a campaign more effective.

The judges will be looking for new thinking, for excellent creative ideas, for meticulous executions, and for direct communications that prompted a dialogue or elicited a response. Second, the judges want additional supporting evidence of effectiveness. Entrants are encouraged to upload any relevant material in support of their entry. Each submission must indicate clearly to the judges the nature and degree of difficulty of the challenge faced.

While the judges will be looking for big, cut-through creative ideas, effectiveness is also important. Each entry must be endorsed by the client to confirm that the campaign met it’s objectives within the timeframe allowed. This endorsement can be made via e-mail.

Each entry should be supported by a written submission of no more than 300 words describing:
• Brief of objectives
• Strategy
• Solution employed
• Evaluation, results and a summary of improvements to business performance

To include direct mail to consumers, business-to-business direct mail, inserts, leaflets, tip-ons and special covers, digital media (including all uses on the internet, telephones and PDA devices), CD/DVD-ROMs, direct email advertising, mobile marketing and door drops.

Poster entries

Campaign’s awards for excellence in outdoor creativity have always reflected the variety and vibrancy of the medium. The Campaign Big Awards will continue this tradition.

Entries will reflect the amazing variety of advertising that people encounter when they walk out of their front doors. It’s on the street, on the side of a bus, in a bus, train or taxi etc. It’s also on buildings, in sports grounds and airports; it’s literally all around us.

Outdoor, as it is known in the UK, has never been stronger and has earned its place in a world of fragmented media with new structures, new technologies and interest from new advertisers.

The jury will be made up of creative people, clients and members of the poster industry. To their credit, the jurors will never allow themselves to be seduced by brilliant but irrelevant creativity. They acknowledge that the only kind of outdoor creativity that matters is the sort that sells by making the most of the medium.

It is imperative that any poster you enter is identical in every way to the poster displayed by your client on no fewer than 25 sites in the UK, except in instances of giant, mega- or special-build sites, where it is understood that a single site may represent a massive spend.

Key rule: evidence that a poster has been displayed fully one month prior to the closing date for the awards should help to ensure that test posters created just to enter the awards will be a thing of the past. Please upload this evidence of display as part of your online entry. 

To include six-sheet posters, 48-sheet posters, 96-sheet posters (including square format), giant posters, all forms of bus advertising, all forms of taxi advertising, all forms of Underground and rail advertising, poster advertising at transport stations, termini and shopping centres (including indoor and point-of-sale posters), all forms of digital outdoor advertising, ambient poster advertising and special builds. Examples of posters promoting the medium are also eligible from companies such as ClearChannel, JCDecaux, etc.

Press entries

When it comes to celebrating creativity in the press, Campaign has led the way. These are awards for creative excellence. They honour those press ads that have appeared in the UK press and really set a benchmark for creative eminence. For more than 30 years, Campaign has championed brilliant creative work. In 2008, the Campaign Big Awards will do exactly that.

The judges will look for ads that are different, relevant and clear; they will look for ads that work; ads that use the medium to its full potential; and ads that senior creatives would be proud to judge.

To include advertising from business magazines, consumer magazines, regional newspapers, national newspapers, programmes and supplements on a variety of formats including small ads, half page ads, full pages ads, double page spreads and special covers. Press ads created for media owners to promote themselves and their medium are also eligible.

Radio Entries

Creative radio advertising is always unforgettable. The judges will be looking for creative commercials that embed a brand in a listener’s ears; that persuade through the power of sound. As with press or outdoor, the judges will look for ads that are different, relevant, clear and persuasive in the way that only radio can achieve. They will also look for ways in which radio was used uniquely to create a markedly different impact for a brand campaign.

There’s only one way to judge a great radio commercial and that’s to listen to it - exactly what we’ll expect our judges to do. Listen.

To include any form of radio broadcast advertising, including promos and advertising by media owners

TV & Cinema Entries

Television is a great motivator. Proof lies in the faith that major advertisers continue to place in this versatile, measurable, highly creative medium. It can build a brand over the longer term or make a massive launch impact.

Television has moved on, however. It is no longer the domain of the massive brand multinationals. Now television can be much more targeted, nationally or locally. Audiences can be sliced more finely and the messages in commercials tuned very precisely. But above all, great TV advertising is memorable, prompting remarkable recall from successful ads and campaigns, setting new trends in innovative ways.

The judges will look for industry or product sector-specific commercials, which achieved their aims for the client using the finest creativity. And they will only compare commercials for, say, cars, with other commercials for cars.

Today, cinema commercials are often derived from TV commercials, but even here creativity can make the difference. The choice of shots and the subtle differences in edit for the big screen can bring a cinema freshness to an ad previously only seen on television. And for those very rare advertising films made just for the cinema also have a place in the Campaign Big Awards.

To include all television commercials, cinema commercials and DVD-embedded commercials, including advertising and promos for media owners.