The American Advertising Awards program is designed to reward creative excellence in advertising. It is, therefore, a creative competition. Of course, there are no absolute measures for creative excellence, no devices that can be laid beside a piece of work to determine its worth. The judging of good or effective advertising, versus bad or ineffective advertising, is a difficult task, at best. Like other selective processes, which call for opinions, it is extremely subjective.

 

In the American Advertising Awards competition, we do not attempt to judge the worth of an ad or commercial by any measure of actual results (sales, leads, inquiries, etc.). We can only judge the entries in the competition based on the apparent extent of their creative achievement (theme/idea, execution and follow-through).

 

Although the judging process is not an easy one, the one constant that will serve us well today is that all of you possess strong credentials for determining what constitutes good and/or effective creativity in advertising. So, based on your experience, knowledge and expertise, the yardstick that we will employ is your learned perceptions of creative excellence.

 

The American Advertising Awards competition encompasses a considerable number of categories. We will present one category at a time. Each will be considered in its entirety before moving on to the next. Please approach each category looking for the strongest creative work.

 

The American Advertising Award winners in this competition are eligible to compete in a multi-state district competition, and if successful there, proceed to the national round of the American Advertising Awards competition. 

 

 

Recommended scoring

 

Although some clubs use a 1–10 system, the N3AC strongly recommends a broader range like 1–100. This makes assessing scores and adding curves, which are sometimes needed, much easier.

 

When scoring entries from 1 to 100, the following parameters are suggested:

90-100: Excellent! I wish I had done that. Top of its category. Gold American Advertising Award material

80-89: Above average work for the market or category, good Silver American Advertising Award material

60-79: Average work for the market or category
1-59: Below average for the market