Guidelines for Preparation of Entry
This year, all the entries for the IAPI Advertising Effectiveness Awards must be submitted online and must conform to the online entry form on this site.
We would recommend that you download the entry form and go through it before completing it online.
General advice:
Your paper must demonstrate how a communications idea worked to deliver a return on the client's investment. To this end, all entries need to tell the story of the idea; what the idea was, how it was arrived at, why it was the right solution, how it was communicated, what challenge was answered, what effects it produced, what were the commercial value of these effects and the payback that was delivered.
Please keep in mind that there is a word count that must be adhered to of 3,000 words, which is an increase on previous awards.
If you are re-entering a paper into the Long-Term Effectiveness Category, you must reflect the changes that have occurred since the last paper was submitted and re-tell the story including these changes.
The following explains the headings found in the online entry form and explains what should be included in each.
- Company Profile (100 words)
This section gives you the opportunity to talk about your agency, size, type, what you're proud of, what you specialise in, etc. - Introduction & Background (300 words)
This is your opportunity to hook the reader by stimulating them about the importance and/or uniqueness of your case. One or more of the judges/readers may not have worked in the market that you are referring to; therefore it is best to imagine that your reader knows nothing about your brand or marketplace. Remember to make it easy for judges to grasp the fundamentals. - Marketing Objectives (400 words)
The reader needs to know what the advertiser was hoping to achieve with their marketing investment. A judge needs to identify clearly what the business, marketing and communications objectives were? What problems you were trying to solve? Etc, - The Task (400 words)
This is your opportunity to explain what was difficult or interesting about achieving the marketing objectives. - The Strategy (400 words)
The reader needs to understand how the team arrived at the strategic solution and why they felt it to be valid. What was the final brief to the creative and/or media? (It is important to refer to the latter) - The Idea & Communication Activity (700 words)
This should describe what the communications idea was and how it manifested itself in one or more channels. This is an appropriate time to include any research that was conducted to validate it. You may wish to discuss how and why the idea may have manifested itself in different ways across different channels. Be clear about how much was spent and on what, and when. NB if the judges become confused about this it makes it impossible to judge your entry. - The Results (400 words)
This is key aspect of your paper and should conclude all that you have presented up to this point, i.e. what happened as a result of any communication activity that took place. It should show an unbreakable chain of events from the communication activity itself to the commercial results. Full data should show:- The audience that were intended to see the communication did so.
- They took the message as was intended.
- This in turn made them think and crucially behave differently to the product/brand/service.
- This shift in attitude and behaviour answered the original marketing objectives.
In your results section, your paper needs to prove that it was the communication itself that made the difference or highlight the contribution it made alongside other elements. The contribution it made then needs to be quantified e.g. how much extra sales and revenue did the idea generate or in the case of public services what happened/didn't happen as a result of the activity.
In addition to this, the best papers demonstrate broader effects e.g. the communication had an effect on a broader audience than expected, that the effects will be manifold for years to come, or that the idea maximised other parts of the marketing mix. If you have a case where you believe the communication acted in a genuinely new or previously unrecorded way then it should be highlighted here. If, in the case there was no value share raised, then your paper must argue what could have happened had the communication not taken place.
Graphs, charts, Media Plans should be placed in the relevant sections of the text; do not be too concerned with the visual layout as long as the data is supplied.
- Payback or Return on Investment (400 words)
This is the ultimate proof to your paper! Many papers tend to fall down at this stage as they express ROI in terms of sales. Here you should also include profit and an evaluation from a short-term view. To improve on your paper further you should take a more expansive approach to ROI, e.g. in addition to your short-term evaluation to profits you could estimate the lifetime value of consumers added. IAPI urges all authors to read past papers in order to get a sense of what should be covered off in this section. These can be found in the archive on this website.
Econometrics and Appendices
Econometrics while not a necessity, do prove to be very useful when reading entries. Appendices may be used in the case where they appear to support an argument.
