The awards are judged by an expert, independent panel, carefully selected and vetted to ensure no conflict of interests. Judges are required to sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) for the purpose of judging the awards.
Our panel of judges will carefully review each submission against the provided judging criteria.
Judges typically review between one and four categories, (35-45 entries) only after a careful review of conflicts of interests.
Scores are collated then combined. They are challenged and discussed with groups of judges moderated by our content team at the Judging Day held at the IAB offices in London.
This is a critical part of the process as it enables full transparency. A winner and if deserving a highly commended is then selected.
Not all categories will attract a highly commended entrant, though some may be given multiple commendations based on merit.
We reserve the right to reallocate your entry if we feel an alternative category is more suitable. We will inform you if this is the case.
Commercial Confidence
One of the biggest reasons for point deduction by judges is not including clear evidence of commercial success and ROI, which is especially problematic for an awards ceremony that has been geared around measurable marketing. More information and greater transparency will enable the judges to score you fairly.
To alleviate concerns, we require all judges to sign a non-disclosure agreement (NDA), and they will not be able to judge a category that their company has entered. Any conflicts of interest are also challenged and disclosed before assigning them entries.
Judges do not have access to categories they are not allocated to judge.
Please mark and highlight anything that should not be disclosed by either our journalists or on screens during the ceremony with 'judges eyes only'.
Where stated that content cannot be marked as Judges Eyes Only (JEO) in the entries, please note that this information may become public should you win.
This information is used by our content and marketing team to help with elements such as winner bios, post-event communications and development of the Book of the Night.