Want to win one of these?

The Effie Awards are well known for celebrating marketing effectiveness. Launched in New York in 1968, the awards program symbolizes great ideas that achieve real results and ideas that work.

To help regional agencies better understand what makes a winning Effie entry, especially one distinguished worthy of a Gold, Mediaquest – the regional organizers of the awards – held a half-day Effie Bootcamp featuring two talks to give attendees both perspectives on what it takes to win: a judge’s perspective and a winner’s perspective.

Alex Malouf, corporate communications manager, Arabian Peninsula, Procter & Gamble (P&G), delivered the first talk.

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Tahaab Rais, regional head of strategy and Truth Central at FP7/McCann Worldgroup MENA and the winner of over a 100 Effies, delivered the second talk of the day outlining his 11 rules (secrets?) for winning an Effie, which is recapped here.

Malouf’s talk covered the following key points:

1. Create a narrative that is simple for the judges to follow (preferably in a video format)
2. Focus first on the big issue – what is the campaign built around?
3. Show that you’ve undertaken research on your target audience(s) and that your insights are research-based.
4. Clearly explain the strategy, how it’s based on your insight work, and how the tactics bring the strategy to life.
5. Finally, and most importantly, clearly state the measurements which underline the campaign’s success. Ideally, the measurements will be business-related, such as sales growth, or could be brand-related (brand-love, brand recall, purchase intent). And use only percentages and not monetary denominations.
6. Present this in a video format, with additional details in the case study. Remember that judges will have to review dozens of case studies, so make their job as easy as possible.
7. And good luck!