Judging
Over the past two decades, Association of Marketing and Communication Professionals' judges have earned a reputation for accuracy, fairness and credibility. A look at the list of MarCom winners is a who's who of the industry. It is also the competition where professional organizations that run their own competitions enter their work.
To ensure timeliness, fairness and consistency, most of the judging is done in the AMCP judging room in Arlington, Texas. Occasionally, judges are empanelled in Washington, D.C. and Dallas. Judges are senior-level, experienced professionals residing in the Dallas-Fort Worth and D.C. areas. They are free-lancers or own their own businesses. They are selected based on experience and availability. It takes two months of full-time work to judge the thousands of entries. Judges can change during the process, but at least one of the two judging coordinators is there at every session.
Entries are judged at random and not compared directly to other entries in their categories. There is no preset number of winners in a category. There are no lengthy essays to persuade the judges; so all work is evaluated solely on its own quality, creativity and resourcefulness. Judges base their decisions on learned perceptions of creative excellence rather than an entrant's imaginative explanation of an entry's value.
Since there is a tremendous variance of resources from entrant-to-entrant, and piece-to-piece, perceived budget is taken into consideration in the judging. Based on their work experiences, judges have an expectation for each individual entry. A student-produced ad is not held to the same expectation as a piece produced by a Madison Avenue agency for a Fortune 50 company.
Judges verbalize their criticisms, compliments etc. and then agree on a score. Entries receiving scores between 90-100 points are Platinum Winners. Entries with 80-89 points are Gold Winners. Entries scoring from 70-79 receive an Honorable Mention certificate.
