With more than 400 papers to choose from, grabbing the judges' attention is vital. But how important is the standard of the entry, as opposed to the quality of the actual campaign being entered? It's a difficult balance - while undoubtedly it is the work under the spotlight, judges can only base their decision on what they are presented with. As 2008's chair of the judges Stevie Spring put it: "Beyond a doubt, it is a combination of the quality of entry and the actual work - you're only reviewing the work through the filter of the paper or presentation."
Therefore, articulating your brilliant solution is crucial. But how do you make your entry shine through succinctly in one A4 page?
While each judge obviously has their own piece of advice, some truisms were raised over and over again. Above all: be articulate, be clear - and use the spell-check.
Award-worthy entry
Shortlist judge Grant Millar, joint managing director of Vizeum, observed: "People need to think why their entry is award-worthy. The point is to demonstrate at the start that there's something at the heart of the entry that makes it really sensational and unique."
Kathryn Jacob, chief executive of Pearl & Dean, swears by the three Cs: clarity, compression and comprehension. "Be clear about what you're going to say - think about where you started from, what was the problem, what was your solution and what were your results. Leave out extraneous detail unless it adds to the character of the entry and get someone else to read it - while it might be obvious to you how things turned out, get someone else to confirm it makes sense."
Another plea from various judges was "don't be lazy". Jacob recalls: "One of the papers I judged was cut and pasted so much that they'd lost the narrative."
Paul Curtis, deputy managing director of Sky Media, adds: "For those entering the same paper in different categories, it would be helpful if they change it."
Of course, there is more scope to be creative when it comes to the shortlist DVDs and even more so for the live presentations in the most fiercely fought categories of Agency and Sales Team of the Year.
And indeed, last year saw some outstanding entries, making it an exceedingly close battle for the top spot on both the media owner and media agency side. Though both were finally pipped to the post, both OMD UK and Emap deserve special mention for the standard of their presentations, which saw judges genuinely torn over their final decision.
As Media Week editor Steve Barrett pointed out in his introduction to the Awards Winners brochure, OMD UK's presentation was deemed to be the best ever seen by many of the judges.
Steve Auckland, managing director of Metro, gushes: "OMD's presentation was probably the best I have seen in the four years I have been on the judging panel. If passion was a decider, then it should have been the clear winner."
The Omnicom agency pulled out all the stops to present a TV show-style presentation, with about 100 staff from all levels piling down to Channel 4's headquarters to give judges a real feel for the culture of the business.
But they were ultimately nudged out by Carat's watertight business case. The reigning champion cannily called on two of its clients, Abbey and General Motors, to sing its praises.
Barrett explained: "The judges had to ask themselves the question 'which agency would you prefer as your agency' and on strict tough business criteria, Carat just inched ahead."
On the media owner side, Emap's presentation also prompted high praise. Judges described it as "imaginative and creative", drilling down into each area of the business before finishing in a group bonding session with 100 members of staff in hard hats and fluorescent tunics.
Again though, it was Sky Media's solid business performance over the past 12 months that sealed the victory.
So ultimately, however stylish the entry, it is concrete results that speak loudest. Vizeum's Millar emphasises: "You need to be able to demonstrate what life was like before the initiative. First: measure the effect on sales or brand impact. Second: get client testimonials to enforce it. And third: show whether or not it's gone on to be repeated by the client."
One medium selling itself on its unmatchable ability to show measurable results is digital. And one thing that stood out last year was its pervading presence in many of the campaigns. Where once it might have been a flashy add-on, now - as you might expect given its inexorable rise - it seems to be intrinsically woven into campaigns.
Its rise up the food chain was embodied by the presence, for the first time, of a digital media owner in the Sales Team of the Year category, with Microsoft Digital Advertising Solutions making the final cut.
Spring, chief executive of Future Publishing, says: "We're at a very complicated place in media. Every single one of the papers used online for something and, increasingly, there was much more collaboration, pulling in specialists when they were needed."
Excellent standard
Complicated it may be, but the abiding consensus was that, yet again, the awards reflected an industry tackling the challenges of fragmentation, technological advances and over-exposed consumers head-on and producing some excellent work.
Sky's Curtis reasons: "Either the quality of media has risen so much it is hard to stand out, or 2006 was a tough year and it is hard to innovate or produce high-quality work when survival is top of your agenda. I prefer to believe it's the former."
Metro's Auckland describes the overall standard as "excellent" and Spring is similarly upbeat. "It's an enormously uplifting experience (being a judge)," she says. "There's so much good work and thinking going on. It's very easy to be sniffy, to say 'back in the day', but I don't think that's the case. The marketplace is so mature, getting stand-out and doing something totally different and innovative is so much more difficult."
Indeed, rewarding those who do manage to pull off "something totally different" is a fundamental reason why such senior figures are willing, year after year, to give up their time to the judging process.
The final word goes to the awards chair, Future's Spring: "It's good to remind ourselves how tough the business is and how many talented people there are in it.">
Therefore, articulating your brilliant solution is crucial. But how do you make your entry shine through succinctly in one A4 page?
While each judge obviously has their own piece of advice, some truisms were raised over and over again. Above all: be articulate, be clear - and use the spell-check.
Award-worthy entry
Shortlist judge Grant Millar, joint managing director of Vizeum, observed: "People need to think why their entry is award-worthy. The point is to demonstrate at the start that there's something at the heart of the entry that makes it really sensational and unique."
Kathryn Jacob, chief executive of Pearl & Dean, swears by the three Cs: clarity, compression and comprehension. "Be clear about what you're going to say - think about where you started from, what was the problem, what was your solution and what were your results. Leave out extraneous detail unless it adds to the character of the entry and get someone else to read it - while it might be obvious to you how things turned out, get someone else to confirm it makes sense."
Another plea from various judges was "don't be lazy". Jacob recalls: "One of the papers I judged was cut and pasted so much that they'd lost the narrative."
Paul Curtis, deputy managing director of Sky Media, adds: "For those entering the same paper in different categories, it would be helpful if they change it."
Of course, there is more scope to be creative when it comes to the shortlist DVDs and even more so for the live presentations in the most fiercely fought categories of Agency and Sales Team of the Year.
And indeed, last year saw some outstanding entries, making it an exceedingly close battle for the top spot on both the media owner and media agency side. Though both were finally pipped to the post, both OMD UK and Emap deserve special mention for the standard of their presentations, which saw judges genuinely torn over their final decision.
As Media Week editor Steve Barrett pointed out in his introduction to the Awards Winners brochure, OMD UK's presentation was deemed to be the best ever seen by many of the judges.
Steve Auckland, managing director of Metro, gushes: "OMD's presentation was probably the best I have seen in the four years I have been on the judging panel. If passion was a decider, then it should have been the clear winner."
The Omnicom agency pulled out all the stops to present a TV show-style presentation, with about 100 staff from all levels piling down to Channel 4's headquarters to give judges a real feel for the culture of the business.
But they were ultimately nudged out by Carat's watertight business case. The reigning champion cannily called on two of its clients, Abbey and General Motors, to sing its praises.
Barrett explained: "The judges had to ask themselves the question 'which agency would you prefer as your agency' and on strict tough business criteria, Carat just inched ahead."
On the media owner side, Emap's presentation also prompted high praise. Judges described it as "imaginative and creative", drilling down into each area of the business before finishing in a group bonding session with 100 members of staff in hard hats and fluorescent tunics.
Again though, it was Sky Media's solid business performance over the past 12 months that sealed the victory.
So ultimately, however stylish the entry, it is concrete results that speak loudest. Vizeum's Millar emphasises: "You need to be able to demonstrate what life was like before the initiative. First: measure the effect on sales or brand impact. Second: get client testimonials to enforce it. And third: show whether or not it's gone on to be repeated by the client."
One medium selling itself on its unmatchable ability to show measurable results is digital. And one thing that stood out last year was its pervading presence in many of the campaigns. Where once it might have been a flashy add-on, now - as you might expect given its inexorable rise - it seems to be intrinsically woven into campaigns.
Its rise up the food chain was embodied by the presence, for the first time, of a digital media owner in the Sales Team of the Year category, with Microsoft Digital Advertising Solutions making the final cut.
Spring, chief executive of Future Publishing, says: "We're at a very complicated place in media. Every single one of the papers used online for something and, increasingly, there was much more collaboration, pulling in specialists when they were needed."
Excellent standard
Complicated it may be, but the abiding consensus was that, yet again, the awards reflected an industry tackling the challenges of fragmentation, technological advances and over-exposed consumers head-on and producing some excellent work.
Sky's Curtis reasons: "Either the quality of media has risen so much it is hard to stand out, or 2006 was a tough year and it is hard to innovate or produce high-quality work when survival is top of your agenda. I prefer to believe it's the former."
Metro's Auckland describes the overall standard as "excellent" and Spring is similarly upbeat. "It's an enormously uplifting experience (being a judge)," she says. "There's so much good work and thinking going on. It's very easy to be sniffy, to say 'back in the day', but I don't think that's the case. The marketplace is so mature, getting stand-out and doing something totally different and innovative is so much more difficult."
Indeed, rewarding those who do manage to pull off "something totally different" is a fundamental reason why such senior figures are willing, year after year, to give up their time to the judging process.
The final word goes to the awards chair, Future's Spring: "It's good to remind ourselves how tough the business is and how many talented people there are in it.">
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