The Drum Awards move online to complete judging process in light of coronavirus
With the coronavirus crisis shutting down social gatherings and events, The Drum has moved its current award judging days online.
The Drum Awards moves online to complete judging process following Covid-19 safety measures
This means that the Online Media, Digital Advertising, Marketing USA, Design, Roses, Digital Advertising USA and Chip Shop Awards will be facilitated via digital methods to ensure that all the hard work entered is viewed and judged.
The pre-judging will commence as normal online. On the judging days, a series of group video calls will be set up for each team. Once all the groups have completed their results and emailed them to the event producers, the Grand Prix will open, and the judges will review online and vote.
Following this, the awards specific chair of the jury and a volunteer from each group will join a final call to discuss and confirm the Grand Prix based on the voting of the whole team.
As for the creative competitions like the Roses and Design awards, which rely on entrants posting physical boards and products, The Drum has emailed entrants giving them the opportunity to amend all entries submitted online with extra images, supporting documents and/or video. This will allow the judges to see the entries at its best online.
The judges will not get to see any physical submissions at this time, and it is advised to entrants to no longer send these in.
The following deadlines have been extended to allow for this change:
- The Drum Roses Awards: 23 March
- The Drum Design Awards: 27 March
The pre-judging and virtual judging days will play out the same as the report-based awards above.
Lynn Lester, managing director of The Drum Live Events, says: "Just like the rest of the world, we are going through unchartered territory but the show must go on, as they say. That's why we are powering ahead with our award judging's in a remote capacity, where the jury will be joining each other via a video link to assess the quality entries. We will create an environment that feels as close to being in the one-room as possible, allowing for strong debate and lots of decision making.
"It has never been more important for our industry to embrace creativity and innovation, to ride this sea of change and continue to thrive - and that is why we are not delaying and getting on with celebrating those who deserve to be celebrated. And hopefully being nominated will result in some uplifting news for our entrants in amongst the worry and angst that they are currently facing."
Currently, The Chip Shop and Digital Advertising USA awards are still open for entry.
The second half of the 2020 awards are now open for submissions, with a super early bird discounted rate (30%) available until Thursday 30 April. Followed by 20% off until Friday 12 June.