The Digital Media Awards 2024
It is an incredible honour to serve as a judge at the Digital Media Awards 2024, hosted by Campaign Asia, aimed to celebrate outstanding achievements in the digital industry in Greater China. Thanks to the colleagues from Campaign Asia the judging logistics is well organized and the experience is smooth.
Being a judge comes with both responsibilities and privileges. I have to review tens of entries and evaluate their objectives, challenges, strategies, creativities, executions, and results. It is a more demanding task than I expected at the beginning. It is a privilege that I have a chance to look into some of the most innovative and impactful campaigns.
What Makes a Success
For sure there are some entries better than others. That’s how they are differentiated and awarded as gold, silver, or bronze. It comes to me that there are two primary factors when I am reviewing entries and calling them success or not. The capability to deliver and the capability to present.
The capability to deliver refers to the ability to execute and achieve desired outcomes. It encompasses a range of factors, including well-defined strategies, original creativity, innovative technology adoption, smooth execution, and impactful result measurement. Successful cases are often those that have a deep understanding of objectives and challenges. With a strategy answering those challenges, taking on new approaches different from the past.
Successful delivery is the ability to understand objectives thoroughly and develop strategies that effectively tackle associated challenges. These strategies should embrace new approaches and technologies, differentiating themselves from previous endeavours. By showcasing how entrants brought their strategies to life, the capability to deliver becomes evident through the written submission and shared materials. In this evaluation process, the incorporation of innovative and unique technologies. Then coupled with supporting data and metrics, further solidifies the impact of delivery.
Presentations are not part of the judging process for the Digital Media Awards 2024. Entrants have to present their work through written entries and supporting materials. The capability to present becomes of paramount importance. As it serves as the sole opportunity for entrants to communicate and showcase their delivered results. Entrants must employ storytelling techniques to effectively cover objectives. And connect them to results, and convey complex information using limited writing and visual aids.
Measuring success requires a holistic evaluation that combines the capability to deliver and the capability to present. Both factors are interdependent and influence each other. While the capability to deliver forms the substance of success, the capability to present conveys success and the ability to score high effectively.
I come up with a quadrant with these two capabilities with four combinations.
The Hero: This combination represents the epitome of success. The Hero possesses a clear understanding of objectives and challenges with business impact, formulates sound strategies to address challenges and achieve objectives, creates a campaign like no others, executes the campaign with customers engaged, and delivers results with business impact. Their written submissions vividly describe their process, showcasing the adoption of unique technologies and ideas, all supported by tangible data and metrics.
The Contributor: This combination represents those who have achieved success but may require further refinement in their presentation. The Contributor demonstrates the ability to deliver a successful campaign. But their presentation may lack clarity and take me quite some time to understand what and how they did that. From the outcome and deliverables, it can be observed that there were considerable efforts put in and with positive results. There were also indications of the adoption of new technologies and channels to achieve such results. However, the storytelling aspect is often absent and information is presented in a bullet-point format.
The Cosmetologist: This combination represents campaigns that, while successful, lack innovation and originality. The Cosmetologist presents an ordinary campaign that may achieve results, but it fails to differentiate itself from common practices. The campaign is still successful with results. But only a basic campaign like any other we are running from time to time. Objectives, challenges, strategy, execution, and results were clearly described and interconnected. However, there is a lack of innovative use of technologies and channels. There are also not many new ideas or approaches to execute the campaign; new creatives, new images, and new themes hardly count as new ideas or approaches.
The Nobody: This combination represents campaigns that blend into the crowd without substantial impact. The Nobody achieves basic success with results, but their campaign lacks innovation and fresh approaches. Furthermore, there was not much storytelling in the making of the campaign either, merely describing objectives without connecting them to business outcomes, even repeating the same content in different sections. The results obtained are ordinary and fail to demonstrate a significant connection to tangible business impact.
Going Beyond
The significance of the capability to deliver and the capability to present extends beyond award competitions. They play equally vital roles in personal and professional development, contributing to individual growth and success. The capability to deliver is essential for achieving personal goals and aspirations, requiring the acquisition and honing of skills, overcoming challenges, and consistently delivering valuable outcomes. An individual’s ability to deliver reflects their competence and reliability in fulfilling responsibilities and tasks.
On the other hand, the capability to present is crucial for networking, building relationships, and effectively conveying one’s achievements. Whether in a job interview, professional conference, or social gathering, the ability to present oneself confidently and articulately significantly influences how others perceive and value one’s capabilities. Exceptional presentation skills amplify an individual’s visibility, creating opportunities for recognition, collaboration, and career advancement.
An individual with a high capability to deliver but a low capability to present may struggle to gain recognition, attract clients, or secure opportunities. However, exceptional presentation skills without the ability to deliver on promises will eventually lead to disappointment and undermine long-term success.
No doubt that all of us want to be a hero but there are not many heroes in the world. There is significant time and effort to excel in each of the delivery and present capabilities and we have limited time and resources to do so. Moreover, each person has a different personality, strengths, and weaknesses placing barriers to advancing in either capability, understanding ourselves and finding balance is critical to finding a good spot to be in the quadrant.
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