Application Forms and Guidelines

Applicants

We are looking for public relations, communications, brand building, and reputation management professionals from companies, consultancies, associations and NGOs, whose work has displayed exceptional talent and ability in 2010.

Entry Deadline

The postmarked deadline for all applications is October 8th, 2010. Postal applications that are received after October 16th, 2010 cannot be included.

Jury

The jury is comprised of leading communications professionals from companies, agencies and universities, as well as governmental spokespersons.

Selection Process

Upon receiving your application, we will first send you a confirmation of receipt by email. Thereafter, our jury will review all entries and choose the shortlist of five projects in each of the available categories. The winners will then be voted on anonymously. In mid-November, we will inform all entrants as to whether their projects have been selected for the shortlist.

Companies or organisations with which jury members are associated may still enter the Awards, however, the juror in question is not allowed to take part in the judging process for their company or organisation.

All applications will be judged on the following criteria: strategy, innovation, creativity, cost-efficiency, results.

Entry fee

The fee for the first nomination submitted is 240 Euros. For any additional applications, the cost is reduced to 190 Euros for each application. Please note that the prices exclude VAT. Projects can be entered in more than one category. The application fee applies per project per category entered.

Application

All submissions must be completed in English. Entered works must have been published after September 30, 2009.Please note that the application forms for categories 1-3 differ from the application forms for categories 4-57, which are identical.

The application for each nomination must contain the following elements:

1. Completed application form. Please note that there are different application forms for categories 1-3, which can be found above.
2. A document with a written text of at most 2000 characters (including spacing and punctuation) with an outline of the project you are applying with. This should include: a) the situation which led to the creation of the project b) the objective of the campaign c) the strategy involved in the campaign d) how the project was implemented e) the results achieved by the campaign.
3. A short document with bullet points, outlining: a) time frame of the project (Start, peak, end) b) Budget in Euros (This information will not be distributed and plays a major role in helping the jury to assess your project) c) Number of staff working on the project d) Weblink to the project (if applicable) There should also be a short summary of your project at the end of this document, which should be no more than 300 characters long (including spacing and punctuation).
4. Supporting material should be carefully selected to illustrate the main points and essence of your project. There is a limit of up to 3 documents (one document equals one digital file or one hard copy). The material accepted as supporting material includes, for example, planning documents, press releases, press kits, pictures, brochures, Powerpoint presentations of no more than 10 slides, movies of no more than 3 minutes and any online material or other unique media.
5. Include one picture that best represents your project (for example, the cover of a report, or a picture of your event) which will be used to illustrate your project to the jury, and if it is shortlisted.

All entries should be made in hard copy and in digital form. Please be aware that all applications will be uploaded to the online intranet used by our jury. The submitted material can not be returned.

Hard copy

Please enter the application form and the text document in one copy, plus three copies of all printed supporting material, such as publications or posters, per project. Original documents should not be submitted. All entry material should be carefully marked with the category, project title, name of the organisation and the name of the consultancy.

Digital format

Please submit your application via email to (up to 5 mb), or on a CD or USB stick. The following file formats can be accepted:

For text:

.pdf, .doc

For pictures:

.jpg/.jpeg,.gif, .png. (Ideally in print quality, 300dpi)

For videos/movies:

.mov, .flv, .avi, .mpg/.mpeg (no more than 100 mb)

For presentations:

.pdf .ppt (Ideally convert powerpoint into pdf. No more than 5 mb)

Documentation

The finalists' projects will be documented in brochures, on the website http://www.excellence-awards.eu, and at the gala ceremony.