in association with Media Week and Campaign.

About the awards.

Background

Great planning - that delivers brand and business benefits - lies at the heart of the most successful advertising campaigns. These awards are about finding and recognising those TV campaigns, whether used within a multi-media advertising campaign or on its own.

Record viewing to linear commercial TV is delivering prices from the mid-‘80s in real terms, contributing to TV’s increasing effectiveness.   TV continues to deliver for advertisers and has been proved to be the most significant driver of revenues across a wide range of products. So why on earth wouldn’t you want to get the most out of TV in order to deliver fantastic business results to your clients?  There’s nothing cooler than delivering exceptional payback on your clients’ advertising investment.

And not only broadcast TV; we are also interested to see how TV is innovating, with new technologies like web TV, IPTV, interactive TV, mobile TV, and new formats like contextual advertising and product placement that have been enabled by regulation change.  And there are  exciting new eco-systems where TV drives 2-screening and the use of augmented reality technologies.  Whether for long-term branding or short-term response, if you’ve got a good TV story to tell we’d like to hear it.

For the first time this year the Judges will consider not only the Grand Prix but also a new special award, Best low budget use of TV. Entrants are unable to enter this award specifically, but any campaigns which spent less than £500k in total should clearly indicate this on the entry. The prize can be awarded to either a category winner or a worthy short-listed entry.

Entrants for these awards tend to come from media agencies.  But we also welcome entries from creative, integrated, direct, interactive or PR agencies or from brand-owners themselves.  However, our strong advice is that collaboration usually delivers the best entries, whether between a planner and buyer within a media agency or across a brand’s agency roster.  A good entry covers both the strategic thinking and the implementational detail. TV broadcasters cannot themselves enter the awards, though they are welcome to help any entry-writer.

Award categories

There are a total of six categories you can enter and the awards entry period is the calendar year January to December 2011*.

1. Best Use of TV in an integrated campaign
   This entry features the use of broadcast TV alongside at least one other medium (eg radio) or marketing discipline (eg PR, point-of-sale), including non-broadcast TV.  The entry should demonstrate how the chosen elements worked with each other.
2. Best ongoing use of TV
   TV keeps delivering value years after campaigns have aired so consistent TV advertising can produce exponential returns. Entrants need to tell us how they have used TV over three or more years for their advertiser, and how the activity has evolved to produce the best results. Entries must feature broadcast TV in every calendar year over the period featured (including the most recent calendar year, Jan – Dec 2011* )
3. Best newcomer to TV
   This entry is for new brands or brands which have not used broadcast TV since January 2006 until doing so in 2011. (Total campaign budget must not have exceeded £500k)
4. Best use of sponsorship or content
   Sponsorship, branded content, advertorials, AFP, promotions, prizes, televised branded events, PR, Product Placement - there is now a wealth of rewarding ways to integrate your brand into the fabric of TV programming. Entrants must tell us how it worked for them.
5. Best use of TV innovation
   From new technology to live ads & events, and from contextual advertising to 2-screening and augmented reality, innovative thinking in media planning and the clever use of technology is liberating TV and adding new dimensions every year. Entrants must explain how they used TV innovation for a brand to good effect.
6. Best use of TV for response
   TV builds brands but TV can also be used to very powerful effect for short-term and tactical objectives. Entrants must specify the nature of the desired immediate and direct response and how successful the campaign was in delivering it.

The Judges will also consider two additional prizes that cannot be entered for directly:

Best low budget use of TV

Any entry which spent less than £500k in total should indicate so on the entry.  This prize can be awarded to either a category winner or a worthy short-listed entry

The Grand Prix is chosen solely from the winners of the six main entry categories.

(* - please contact Jamie Maskall if any clarification is required)

Awards

Each winning entry will receive a coveted Thinkbox TV Planning Award to grace your mantelpiece and your work will appear in a special awards supplement, distributed with both Campaign on Mediaweek.co.uk

All six category winners will then be eligible for the Grand Prix, the prize for which is a 52" HD Smart TV, for their agency.

Key dates

• Friday, 16 March 2012: closing date for submissions
• Tuesday, 17 April: Judging day
• Wednesday, 30 May 2012 (TBC): Thinkbox TV Planning Awards Event

What to do next?

Well, the first thing to do is to pre-register your interest in entering the awards; it’s quick and easy to do. This will enable us to keep you updated with further announcements as we head towards the winning line and remind you of easy-to-forget things like submission deadlines.

Secondly you should have a good look at the critical elements your submission will need to include and the entry deliverables. You can read all this essential stuff here.

Also, we’ve also put together some handy hints on writing a successful paper.

The ever-necessary small print is available for scrutiny here.

Finally, you may wish to have a look at last years’ winners, or find out what struck the judges from amongst the 2011 papers and perhaps have a look at some pictures from the award’s ceremony to spot who partook of a sweet sherry or two.

Further queries

If you have any further questions, please give Jamie Maskall a call on 020 7630 2329 or drop him an email at jamie.maskall@thinkbox.tv.