Canmol \ How to apply
You can submit an entry for Canmol: Wales Marketing Awards entirely free of charge.
In addition to the Canmol awards for marketing excellence 2010 sees the addition of two awards which will be awarded to individuals: Outstanding Contribution and New Marketer of the Year.
A shortlist will be announced in September and winners will be announced at the Awards Ceremony on 7 October 2010. The five winners each receive an attractive trophy, winner's certificate, bottle of whisky, a free day of consultancy provided by Newport Business School and of course the significant PR opportunities which arise from winning a Chartered Institute of Marketing Award. One of the winners will be selected for free entry into the UK-wide Marketing Excellence Awards.
Marketing Awards: remember that the judges are looking for insight into the objectives, targets and message you are trying to communicate. They will also want to see an evaluation of your marketing strategy. Successful entries are likely to include evidence of:
(a) Planning
(b) Delivery/Excellence in execution
(c) Innovation and
(d) Effectiveness/ROI.
In order to be a winner you need to show that you had clear objectives, a strategy and a result. Entries sometimes fail because they include plenty of slick graphics but fail to show what they were intended to do, at whom they were aimed and whether they achieved the desired result. Prizewinning marketing will always deliver a return on investment. That is not to say that we are excluding social marketing or "not-for-profit" for which you may not be able to produce evidence of a financial return. Indeed three of the five winners in 2008 were public-sector and two more in 2009. If your marketing project is at an early stage and it’s too early to demonstrate ROI then you should at least provide evidence to show why you believe the strategy will be effective. How do you propose to measure effectiveness/ROI?
Can you demonstrate the following?
1. What were the main aims and key objectives of the campaign?
2. Who were the intended target markets?
3. What were the key features of the campaign that differentiated your product/service?
4. How did you communicate the benefits/key features to your target market?
5. How did you measure success?
For the marketing awards there are five winners and all are equal. There are no industry sector categories or campaign categories such as 'best PR' or 'best direct mail' because we feel that modern marketing in Wales is about looking for the best integrated marketing that helps the organization meet objectives, rather than specific advertising and PR campaigns. That's not to say that your entry cannot concentrate on one particular campaign or one particular communication method, but that will be judged on the same criteria as all other entries.
Submitting an entry does not qualify for CPD but the learning which took place during the running of the project itself should be eligible within the relevant category eg. private study, in-company training etc. See www.cim.co.uk/cpdactivities for further details of categories.
Don't think that you have to have a large budget in order to win. One of the 2008 winners had a budget of less than £200!
For the Outstanding Contribution and New Marketer of the Year awards you may nominate yourself or you may nominate someone else. Use the application form as explained below, selecting the appropriate award. For individual awards you simply need to tell us why the individual is exceptional and deserves recognition.
Please select 'Upload application' from the menu on the left to submit your application on line. Entries should be online to allow the judges easy access your application.
You can upload up to six files (Microsoft Office, Open Office, pdf etc). Try to keep them reasonable in size so you don't have to wait too long for them to upload. There is a 5MB limit per file. You will receive an error message if you try to exit before the upload is complete. Word files containing illustrations tend to be excessively large but if you save as a pdf file the file is normally substantially smaller in size. Although there is a free-text box labelled ‘tell us why you should win’ we suggest that you do not use this box to submit your whole application (pasting into this box loses all formatting and so your application may not appear to the judges as professional). Longer pieces of text should be uploaded as Word files.
There is no entry form other than that on this web site.
The deadline for submitting entries on-line is Saturday 31 July 2010. The Awards ceremony will be held on Thursday 7 October 2010 in Cardiff. Tickets for the award ceremony are on sale now, costing £50+VAT. See www.cim.co.uk/32509 for further details.
We would encourage you not to submit samples unless really necessary. The judges are not impressed by samples unless they illustrate something which really cannot be demonstrated in the documents you have submitted online. If, however, you want to supplement the application with hard copies in order to demonstrate for example the nature of stock used or creativeness of folds, die cuts etc. in design work, which may have had an impact on the overall quality/experience of some pieces, then submit six copies to the Canmol administrator, Richard Houdmont, The Chartered Institute of Marketing, PO Box 4217, Cardiff, CF14 8DF. We cannot return samples.
If you have any queries about Canmol, please contact Richard Houdmont on 075 0008 5468 or e-mail wales@cim.co.uk.