STOP PRESS (1) 'How to Win' videos.  Available if you click here are the videos of all the presentations from our how to win evening at the end of January. Useful tips on how to write a paper, do a presentation and utilise pretentious quotes.

STOP PRESS (2)  Winning papers from 2003 awards can now be downloaded if you click here.  To be able to download the papers you have to (a) be a member of APG (b) be paid-up (c) have registered on this site. To register click here.

STOP PRESS (3)  Winning papers from 2001 awards can now be downloaded if you click here.

It is time once again for planners to pit their thinking and work against their peers in the planning world.

2005 sees the seventh biennial celebration of the best thinking in our business. And in the spirit of constant improvement the APG continues to evolve the awards to ensure that they keep pace with changes in planning practice and in the marketing communications industry in general.

That said, many of the improvements we made in 2001 and 2003 are bearing fruit.

In particular we are pleased with the way that the categories are now working and so these will remain the same for 2005. Splitting the established product brands into two categories, one for brands spending over £2m a year and one for those spending less, has evened out the numbers of papers entered in each category and encouraged many more entries from outside the orthodox advertising agency world. While the number and quality of entries in the multimarket category continues to improve each year.

However, we have made some changes to the special prizes. Prizes for insight, media thinking, research and creative briefs remain but we have created two new special prizes.

To ensure that the contribution of planning outside traditional advertising agencies is recognised there will be one special prize reserved for media, direct, sales promotion, interactive, design, consultancy or whatever businesses. Any company outside Campaigns top 30 advertising agencies will be eligible for this prize.

We also want to showcase the work many planners are making in pushing forward the boundaries of our discipline so we will award one special prize to the paper that offers the most inspiring new thinking about the practice of planning. As ever, all special prizes are gold awards and all entrants have to be APG members.

The increased collaboration between different agencies representing different skills was recognised in 2003 when joint entries from creative and media agencies as well as creative agencies and consultancies walked off with prizes. We are keen to encourage collaborative entries in 2005.

Finally, this year we intend to be more obsessive about focusing on the quality of thinking demonstrated in the papers rather than the quality of the story. As part of this focus we now require the 200-word summary you submit with the entry to highlight the thinking in your paper and the reason that you believe the paper deserves to be awarded, rather than just a synopsis of the planning journey.

How to win

There are some clear guidelines about what makes for a winning paper.

The APG does not reward best practice in planning, we only reward planning excellence. Most of the 125 entries we receive in an average year document examples of very good planning and so there are no prizes for simply doing a good job, you have to have done an outstanding job.

On the whole wining papers have three things in common:

• A powerful strategic idea
• A potent creative expression
• A clear link between the two

However, to be frank, these are hygiene factors. The characteristics that will mark out award winners will be a combination of the following:

At best great papers make APG judges sick with envy. We just want to feel humbled and shamefaced that we didnt recognise those insights, come up with those ideas or deliver that work.

And yes, it is subjective. There isnt a formula for guaranteed success; merely the opinion of short-listers and jurors that we have chosen because we wanted to be judged by them.

Entry Categories

You must nominate your paper for one of the following six categories:

• Campaigns/projects for established service brands
• Campaigns/projects for established product brands (over £2m): a campaign for an existing and marketed product brand, with more than £2m promotional spend in the 12 months ending March 2005
• Campaigns/projects for established product brands (under £2m): a campaign for an existing and marketed product brand, with less than £2m promotional spend in the 12 months ending March 2005
• New brands or new advertisers: a campaign that either launches a new brand or represents its first piece of marketing activity.
• Public Service and Charity
• Multi-market campaigns

Special Prizes will be awarded for:

Shortlisted papers will be eligible for Bronze, Silver or Gold awards within their category. The Grand Prix will be awarded for the best overall submission, drawn from the six category Gold Awards. All papers entered, not just those short-listed for category awards, will be considered for special prizes. All awards and special prizes will be published in the APG awards book. All papers that reach a good standard will be published online as APG case studies in planning.

The Jury

The Shortlisting Panel

Key Dates

How to Win evening -- 27th January 2005
Closing date for submissions -- Noon 7th April 2005
Shortlisted authors contacted -- June 2005
Press supplement of shortlisted papers -- 22nd July 2005
Final Jury presentations -- 4th and 5th July 2005
Awards presentation, dinner and exhibition -- 29th September 2005

The Rules of Entry

1. Entrants must be members of the APG. If there is more than one author at least one must be an APG member.

2. The APG member(s) must be the presenter(s) to the final jury if the paper is shortlisted.

3. The written entry must not exceed 2000 words and should be considered a maximum rather than a requirement. Please state your word count.

4. Whilst you may include other evidence in addition to the creative work, such as video clips, a written paper is mandatory. Ensure that your written paper has bound into it a copy of each creative brief; and appropriate references to all creative work, such as scripts and storyboards of broadcast advertising.

5. You must provide a separate summary of the thinking in the paper of no more than 200 words. This summary should be bound into your paper after your title page.

6. Your entry must be signed off by the senior management of all the companies involved in the submission and by your client. You must send these approvals with your entry, using the entry form.

7. A planner who has left an agency may write a paper under their own name on behalf of that agency, subject to agency and client approval.

8. An agency may submit a paper if the client has since left the agency, provided they have approval and sign-off from that client

9. An agency may submit a paper if the planner who did the thinking has left, provided that the planner is credited.

10. For winning papers, the Award trophy will be presented to the principal author. Co-authors and contributing thinkers will be credited and will have the option of purchasing further Award trophies.

11. Entries must be received by 12 noon on 7th April 2005 together with an entry form and payment of the fee of £558.13 per entry (£475+vat). Cheques payable to "Account Planning Group".

12. You may only submit your paper into one of the six categories. You must clearly nominate the category on the entry form and on the front cover of your paper. The APG reserves the right to reallocate entries to alternative categories.

13. The creative work must have run between 7th June 2003 and 6th April 2005.

14. For papers in the multi-market category, one of the markets must be the UK.    This rule has been revised to allow multimarket entries for work that has not run in the UK.  (The effect is to remove rule 14.) 

15. The special prize for agencies outside Campaigns top 30 list will be open only to agencies who meet this criterion according to the rankings published by Campaign in February 2005.

16. A/V creative work should be supplied on DVD or CD.

17. Along with your 10 written copies you must supply two copies on disk, one copy saved as Microsoft Word and one saved as ASCII (ie text only).

18. All additional materials supplied must be bound into the submission as appendices.

19. World copyright of each entry will pass to the APG and the author(s) must ensure that the approvals supplied under Rule 6 are adequate for this purpose.

20. Shortlisted papers will be published in APG Creative Planning Awards Volume 7. The APG will call on entrants to supply high quality reference materials for publication and for exhibition purposes.

22. Entries must be delivered by 7th April 2005 to APG Creative Planning Awards, Account Planning Group, 16 Creighton Avenue, London N10 1NU Tel 020 8444 3692