Useful advice

Thank you for your interest in submitting your work to the global Digital Signage Awards. This page provides what we hope is useful advice and guidance on the submissions requirements and the process.
 
First, some background …
 
These annual awards are reviewed solely on the merits of the work. Vendors and service providers cannot “buy” awards, directly or through oft-used tactics like sponsorships or large orders of awards dinner tickets. The judges are all volunteers and all work directly within the digital signage and/or DOOH industries. There is a detailed process to identify both relevance and excellence in projects.
 
The categories have been reviewed and refined again to help bring to the surface the thinking and impacts of projects and reduce the focus on big scale and big capital budgets.
 

To enter the Digital Signage Awards, you or someone at your firm will need to prepare your 100-word (maximum) summary, and your 1,500-word (maximum) full submission paper. We recommend doing this offline as its own document, or documents. You will upload the summary and full submission documents as part of completing your submission online, using the Entry Form. You will also be asked to provide a good reference photo of the project and, ideally, provide a different image for each entry you make for that project. You will need to upload your company or brand logo, too.

Space is also provided for any URL for photo or video files on on a micro site or on Vimeo or YouTube, for instance. Submitting your entry will then lead you to payment page to cover the fee.

A maximum of five entries is allowed per project and all entries must be submitted online. Companies with multiple projects can make 5 entries for each different project.

 

The Entry Process In Detail

To enter your company’s work, we require a 100-word maximum summary of the project, as well as a more detailed submission that covers off things like the background, technical information and impacts of the work. This should be no more than 1,500 words. You are best to have these prepared as completed documents that will then be uploaded when prompted by the Entry Form. You will also be asked to provide a good reference photo for the submission (remember, first impressions matter can when it comes to judged entries), and we’ll also need a company or brand logo for your firm.

The Judges will automatically vote lower any entries exceeding the word count. At the same time, the judges will appreciate how you have condensed your entry into the 100-word summary and whether you have followed the template guidance below for your full submission paper. Please adhere to these basic rules of entry, together with any other specific criteria described below.

Photographs may be made available for the judges to view, either upload these through the online entry form at time of submission or upload them to your own micro site, or to YouTube or Vimeo. You will need to include a link to the micro site, YouTube or Vimeo, when prompted by the entry form and where the judges can look at any additional visual material. Do not upload a photo file larger than 5MB with your entry form as it will be rejected. The judges will want to see larger reference images – at least one of which must be uploaded with your entry form – or view any relevant video file – when considering the merits of your entry.

The closing date for entries is September 30, and you will need to pay the first entry fee before any of your entries are processed for judging.

 

Template guide for your submission paper for judging

Your written document should show how your project met its aims, employed creativity or innovative techniques, was enjoyed by users, and delivered views/impressions, satisfaction and a return on investment. At the beginning of your document the following information must be listed:

Within your submission, please use the following as sub-headings under which you clearly provide your explanation for the judges, depending on which category group you are entering. If there is additional information that you think is not covered by these sub-headings, you can add that, but please still stick to the 1,500 word count limit:

 

Project Excellence categories

Creative Excellence categories

Product and Services categories

Company Excellence categories

Because the stories told by entrants are so varied we try not to be too prescriptive about how companies should enter the Company Excellence categories. It is enough to ask that each entry explains why a new company or an existing company has a claim to win a gold award. We want entrants to tell their story to the judges in their best way.

Entries for the Start-up category should meet the eligibility criteria: the company must have commenced operations after October 1 2022 and should be able to prove a full year’s trading in the period to September 30 2024.

Entries for Outstanding Individual are by NOMINATION and are FREE OF CHARGE and must be submitted by November 30, each year.

If you are in any doubt about how to enter, please contact Olivia McKelvie by email.

 

Support material

If you wish to provide additional support material (for instance if there has been marketing collateral or video work associated with your campaign) please provide a link to any micro site, or YouTube or Vimeo, where the judges can view your material.

The judges will want to feel fully informed about your activity, so please include whatever you feel is appropriate and relevant for your entry. If an entry is entered into more than one category, please indicate this clearly, but remember you need to remind the judges of the micro site URL or YouTube or Vimeo file for the support material, in each written submission you enter.

It is worth stressing that digital signage is highly visual. It has to be. So, it is tremendously important that you include as many visuals as you can to illustrate what was done and its impact. The judges don’t want massive photos, but they’d rather have that than small postcard-sized images that are too small to be useful. Bottom line: making it easy for our judging panel to see and understand what you did will only help. One or two small photos and a written summary is not a good idea, but a micro site of images or a link to a video really is. We are planning to use more video in the presentation of the Awards’ winners in future.

 

Disqualifications

The Digital Signage Awards are international business awards. The organizers have the competition open to the whole digital signage industry, but any website or submitted material that breaks national or international laws or offends public, religious, national or gender-specific sensitivities, or that flouts advertising, promotion or Internet rules (such as spamming) will be disqualified. If an entry is disqualified for any reason the entry fees will not be refunded.