The Jury Standard
What an award entry needs to win, part by part, and where good teams lose the points they should have taken.
By Dian Paskalis · 129 entries that I assessed as a jury member in 2 cycles of an Indonesian marketing awards programme. The benchmarks are the public criteria of Effie Worldwide and MMA SMARTIES.
What the jury actually sees
For two cycles I sat on the jury of a marketing awards programme in Indonesia. I read 129 entries. For each one I gave four scores and wrote a short comment to explain them.
The work is not glamorous. The entries arrive together, and you read many of them in one session. MMA SMARTIES tells its entrants to expect this, and says that a jury member reviews 20 to 40 cases in a single session.
Something happens to you at that volume. In the first few entries you notice the design, the language and the confidence. By the twentieth entry, those things have no effect any more. Every entry is confident. Only the argument is left.
I keep all my comments in one file. After the second cycle I read the whole file at one time, which I had not done before. I expected to find many different problems. Instead I found the same problems, in the same places, again and again.
So this is not a theory about award entries. It is a description of what I see, part by part, and what the better entries do differently.
What a good entry contains
Every entry form asks for the same things. The order changes, and the names change, but under the names a complete entry gives the jury six items.
The challenge. What was difficult, and why it was difficult for this brand in this year.
The objective. What the team committed to, as a number, before the campaign started.
The insight. The reason that the team believed the plan would work.
The plan. The strategy that follows from the insight, and the audience it selects.
The execution. What the team built and ran, and how the parts operate together.
The result. What changed, and the argument that the campaign caused the change.
Two more qualities apply to all six items. The work must be innovative, not only competent. And it must be holistic: the parts must operate as one system, and not as a set of separate activities.
Award sheets collect these six items into four scores. The four groups are the same everywhere, and they are the structure of the rest of this page. I call them the Jury Standard, because they are the four things I decide when I score.
| The part of the entry | The pillar | Weight |
|---|---|---|
| The challenge and the objective | Stakes | 20% |
| The insight | Truth | 25% |
| The plan and the execution | Architecture | 25% |
| The result | Return | 30% |
The weights are those of the score sheet for this set of entries. Effie Worldwide gives the equivalent pillars 23.3 / 23.3 / 23.3 / 30, and it also gives the largest weight to the results.
The challenge and the objective
The Jury Standard calls this Stakes. Award sheets score it as Objective · Challenge and context.
The first part of the entry explains what was difficult, and what the team decided to do about it. Most entries do the first half well and the second half badly.
This section also gets the most generous scores of the four. I give those scores myself, and I understand why. A team that describes its problem clearly has usually done the work, so I reward the description.
That is also the trap. A clear description earns a high score almost automatically. Entrants learn that this section is easy, and they stop there. It is easy to pass and very difficult to win.
The question a jury member answers
Could a good team reach this number with its usual work?
What a strong section does
- The challenge is specific to this brand in this year. A jury member can see why the problem was urgent at that time.
- The challenge has a magnitude. Sales fell for five years. Share dropped by a stated number of points. The main product lost its position.
- The objective is clear, measurable and difficult. It names a number, and that number sits outside the usual trajectory of the business.
- The objective exists before the campaign. A target that appears only in the results section is a description, not a commitment.
Where entries lose the points
- The challenge describes the market. "The category was competitive" is true for every entrant in the room, so it separates nobody.
- The objective is a delivery goal. "Use the framework in three or more channels" is a project plan, not a marketing objective.
- The objective is an aspiration. Nobody can measure "reconnect emotionally" or "strengthen preference", so nobody can win with them.
- There is no number anywhere. Then the result section has no target to answer, and the entry loses those points later.
What to take from this
Give the jury two numbers: the number the business reaches with no campaign, and the number the team agreed to reach. The distance between them is your challenge. Without it, a jury member cannot separate an ambitious goal from an easy one.
The insight
The Jury Standard calls this Truth. Award sheets score it as Strategy and insight.
The insight is the reason that the team believed the plan would work. It is the shortest part of most entries, and it decides more of the score than entrants expect.
An insight that arrives after the plan has a shape that is easy to recognise. It is true, it is agreeable, and nothing in the strategy depends on it.
A real insight is uncomfortable, and other people can disagree with it. It names a tension that the brand did not want to discuss.
The question a jury member answers
Did an insight cause this plan? Or did the plan come first?
What a strong section does
- The insight names a tension, not a group of people. It says something true that the brand would prefer not to say.
- The plan is not possible without it. If you remove the insight, the strategy stops to make sense.
- The team did the research. The entry gives the method and the sample size, not only the conclusion.
- The insight is local. It is specific to that market and that moment, not a global trend that applies everywhere.
Where entries lose the points
- A description of the audience replaces the insight. "Gen Z are digital natives who value authenticity" is census data, not an insight.
- A statistic from a trend report stands in the place of original work.
- The insight and the plan were made by different people, at different times, in that order. A jury member can see this in the text.
What to take from this
Cover the insight with your hand and read the strategy again. If the strategy still makes sense, the insight is decoration, and a jury member scores it as decoration. The test takes ten seconds, and it is the first thing I do.
The plan and the execution
The Jury Standard calls this Architecture. Award sheets score it as Execution.
This part explains what the team built and how they ran it. Most entries give a list of channels here. A list of channels is not a plan.
To put the same content in five channels is distribution. An architecture is different: each channel does a different task, and it hands the audience to the next channel.
This is also the one part with evidence outside the entry form. I open the supplied material for every entry that makes a large claim about its craft.
The question a jury member answers
If you remove one element, does the campaign stop, or only become smaller?
What a strong section does
- Each channel has a task, and the entry explains the task. A jury member can see why the team selected that channel and not another.
- The parts hand work to each other. An activity in the street finishes inside the application. A creator layer supplies an audience to a later stage.
- The entry states its constraint: a small budget, a legal limit, or a short schedule. Then the jury can judge the craft against real conditions.
- The supplied material shows what the text describes, or more.
Where entries lose the points
- Five channels with no sequence, no handover, and no explanation of what each one is for.
- The text claims more than the material shows. A simple poll becomes "community engagement" in the write-up.
- New technology that the campaign does not need. Remove it, and the campaign operates in the same way.
What to take from this
Ask one question about your own campaign. If you remove one element, does it stop, or does it only become smaller? If it only becomes smaller, you distributed a message. If it stops, you built a system, and you must show the jury which element carries the load.
The result
The Jury Standard calls this Return. Award sheets score it as Results · Business impact.
The result is the largest part of the score and the smallest part of the effort. Entries lose more points here than anywhere else.
The cause is the sequence of work. Teams write the sections in the order of the questions on the form. So they write the result last, at the deadline, from the data that is available at that hour.
The section becomes a report. But it is the only section that must be an argument.
The question a jury member answers
What else could cause this number, and how do you know that it did not?
What a strong section does
- Every objective from the first section appears again, with a number against it, in the same order. This includes the targets that the team did not reach.
- Each figure has a comparison: an earlier period, a control group, a matched market, or a benchmark for the category.
- There is a denominator. A budget, a cost for each outcome, or an efficiency figure sits beside the headline number.
- The entry names the other possible causes itself, and explains how much of the outcome they account for.
Where entries lose the points
- Something else was also true in the same period, and the entry does not discuss it. Examples are a lower price, a larger discount, wider distribution, easier conditions, continuous media, and a seasonal peak.
- A stated objective never appears again. If the first section promised a share target, a jury member reads its absence as a failure, not as an omission.
- Percentages with no absolute numbers behind them, a lift at one location only, or a figure that the entrant keeps confidential.
- Large media numbers in the place of a business outcome. Reach, impressions and engagements describe delivery, not effect.
What to take from this
A number with no comparison, no denominator and no cause is a claim. A jury member scores a claim as a claim, however large the number is. This is not a high bar. It does not need more research or a larger budget. It needs one paragraph that a busy team did not write.
Competent is not the same as innovative
Read the name of the category that you enter. In most programmes it begins with the words "most innovative". The award is not for good work. It is for new work.
This one distinction explains more of the spread in my scores than any other. A campaign that follows the standard playbook, and follows it very well, lands near 7.5 of 10. It does not land at 9. Nothing goes wrong with it, and it pushes nothing.
There is a second rule that entrants outside the market often miss. I judge innovation against what is already normal in Indonesia, not against a global standard. Many tactics look new in a regional deck and are completely ordinary here.
Already ordinary here, so not innovation
- WhatsApp as the main sales channel, with no landing page
- Mass activation of many small creators and influencers
- A branded sound with a challenge on TikTok or Reels
- Live selling, affiliate commission, and cash on delivery
- Marketplace campaign dates such as 9.9, 11.11 and 12.12
- Ramadan family stories and the journey home
- A local celebrity or comedian as the main device
- Spin-the-wheel, scratch cards, and collect-the-stamp mechanics
If one of these is the central idea of your entry, a jury member reads it as an overclaim. Then the score falls in two places at the same time.
Four things do raise the bar here. Technology or data that the team built for this campaign. A change to the commercial model instead of the message. Measurement that is unusually rigorous for this market. A cultural insight that is specific, and not seasonal.
The second quality is integration, and entrants claim it more than any other. To claim it, show the handovers. Which part starts the attention, which part converts it, and which part returns value to the first part.
Also remove the self-declared titles. "First and only", "category defining" and "a new paradigm" are claims. A jury member counts them as claims, and a claim with no evidence makes the rest of the entry look weaker.
The jury is a variable too
There is one more thing that entrants should know, and it is about me and not about them.
Before I sent my second-cycle sheet, I compared my early scores with my late scores. The first 44 entries had a mean of 81.84. The last 40 entries had a mean of 79.71.
Almost all of that difference sat in one criterion. My result scores fell from a mean of 7.81 to 7.36 as the batch continued.
So I read every late entry with a low result score again, against the written anchors of my rubric. Most of the difference was real, because the late batch contained weaker result sections. But 5 entries sat below their anchor, and I raised them.
I describe this because it is the honest picture of how a jury works. A jury member is a person who reads for many hours. Careful juries look for this drift and correct it, and good programmes build the check into their process.
You cannot depend on that check. The safe assumption is that a tired reader sees your entry, late in a long session. Write the result section so that it does not need a generous reader.
Checks to do before you send the entry
All of the above becomes useful only when you apply it to a draft that already exists. So this is the list I would give to a team one week before the deadline.
There are eight checks, and the sequence starts with the check that recovers the most score. The first check is more important than the other seven together. It is also the only one that you must do before you write the entry.
Write the result section first
Write the result section before the other sections. Then you have time to get a number that you do not have. If you write it last, it can report only the available data.
Make a list of the other causes
Write down all the other events in the campaign period. Include the price, the promotion, the distribution, the product, and the season. Discuss the largest one in the entry. The jury will find it.
Connect each objective to its evidence
Make a table with two columns. Put each objective in the first column. Put the figure that answers it in the second column. A row with no figure decreases the score. Get the figure, or remove the objective.
Add a denominator
Put a cost, a budget, or a cost for each outcome with the primary result. Without one, the jury can see only the size of the result.
Give a baseline to each number
Give an earlier period, a control, or a benchmark for the category with each figure. A number with no comparison is a claim.
Remove the insight and read again
Remove your insight from the text. Then read the strategy again. If the strategy is still correct, the insight was decoration and the Truth section is weak.
Compare innovation with the local practice
Compare each claim of innovation with the usual practice in the market of the entry. Do not compare it with a global standard.
Compare the material with the text
Open the supplied material. Read the entry and the material together. If the text claims more than the material shows, correct the text.
Method and limits
These patterns come from 129 entries that I assessed as a jury member in 2 cycles of an Indonesian marketing awards programme. The first cycle had 45 entries in 15 categories. The second had 84 entries in 13 categories.
I gave each entry a score on four criteria and also a written comment. The failures on this page come from those comments.
The score sheets are confidential to the jury. So this page does not give the name of an entrant, a campaign, a figure from any entry, or the programme. It reports totals and averages only. The public criteria and weights below were correct on the date of access.
There are three limits. First, these are the scores of one jury member. The averages show my calibration, and they do not show the true quality of the field. The pattern that matters is the difference between the strongest part of an entry and the weakest part. That difference occurred in both cycles and in two different jury groups.
Second, that difference is a rank inside each entry. It is not a measurement against an external standard. So it shows where an entry is weak in comparison with its own other sections.
Third, all of these entries are Indonesian. The parts about local practice apply to that market only. The four pillars apply to other markets also.