Rufus Chater, Managing Partner at Together knows what it takes to turn a good idea, into an award winning one. Having won an outstanding 11 trophies at the 2024 IAB NZ Digital Advertising Awards, Rufus shares his 'boringly achievable' six-step formula for crafting award winning entries. Winning might feel exhilerating, but as he explains, success starts with a smart, methodical approach.
The Boring Truths of Writing a Winning Award
By Rufus Chuter, Managing Partner, Together.
With the 2025 IAB Awards deadline looming, I’ve been asked to share a perspective on how to write a winning entry. Over the years, I’ve been accused of being “good at writing awards,” as if it’s some kind of unfair advantage – a rare and mysterious alchemy bestowed by the awards gods.
But the truth is far more mundane: award writing is formulaic. And once you know the formula and put in the reps, becoming “good at awards” is boringly achievable. Like all great media work, it starts with one important insight: you’re writing for judges. Judges who are busy, working through dozens of entries and giving up time they could be spending with clients, family – or polishing their own awards – to read yours. Your job? Make it easy to see why your work should be awarded. Be clear about what made it great, how it worked and make the experience of reading it simple…perhaps even enjoyable.
If that sounds hard, here’s a checklist to help, with a few tips to try along the way. Happy writing and good luck!
1. Know what you’re selling – why should this win?
Before you type a single word, be crystal clear on why this piece of work deserves an award. An award entry exists to sell your work to a judge. So, what are you selling? Can you explain the reason it should win in one or two sentences? Start
here and don’t continue if you can’t. Tip: try writing what screenwriters call a “logline” – a one or two sentence summary –
of your entry. You might find starting with “This is a story about…” a useful way of beginning – whatever comes next is the thing. If screenwriters can do it for a two- hour film, you can do it for a media award. Our best in show work for AIA was simply “this is a story about how a small spending brand turned its bigger competitors’ TV spends against themselves”.
2. Be clear on how your work fits the category – why should it win here?
Each category exists to recognise specific qualities – whether creativity, innovation, effectiveness, technical excellence in a specific domain like data or programmatic – so tailor your entry accordingly. Don’t assume judges will connect the dots.
Tip: read the category description and judging criteria carefully. Highlight key words or phrases and check that your entry reflects them clearly. Help the judge reward you for the right reasons.
3. Tell a story – does it flow and connect logically?
Great award entries read like good stories. They have structure (a beginning, middle and end) and a sense of drama – challenges, turning points and moments of clarity. Tip: try using this story arc format:
“Once upon a time…” (background and the problem)
“Until one day…” (the insight that changed everything)
“Because of that…” (how the insight drove strategy and execution)
“Until finally…” (the results it delivered)
It’s simple, human and forces logical flow in your writing.
4. Prove success – did it really work against the objectives?
Just as your story should connect, your results need to connect to the objectives. That means interrogating your metrics. Are they relevant? Do they prove that your activity – not something else – drove the outcomes?
Use media metrics like CPMs, CTRs or CPCs with care. They’re interesting, but they’re not outcomes.
Tip: build a grid that shows your original objectives, what you achieved and the delta between the two. Ask yourself: “What else could have driven this result?” then back up your answer with data that rules this out.
5. Don’t assume knowledge – will a judge really understand what makes this clever?
This is especially important in technical categories in the IAB NZ Digital Advertising Awards. Just because you understand what a custom bid algorithm API is, doesn’t mean the judge will. Great entries break down complexity and make it clear why something is clever – and why that cleverness deserves recognition. If it was hard, explain why. If it was a
first, explain why that matters. Tip: try explaining the cleverest part of your case to a family member. The “would my
mum understand this?” test never fails.
6. Avoid clichés, ChatGPT tells and little errors – what could trip your entry up?
You’ve put in the hard yards. You’ve told a compelling story, matched it to the right category and shown why your work should win. Now don’t let the small stuff undo it.Entries can be undone by the tiniest of errors – typos, rogue em dashes or giveaways that AI’s had a heavy hand in the draft. No matter how strong the work, ifthe entry feels rushed, sloppy or generic it will lose credibility with judges.Concluding Tip: check, check, then check again. Then ask someone unconnected to the work to read it. Does it make sense? Is it clear what the judge is being asked to reward? You’d be amazed how many small errors slip through when you’re focused on the bigger story.
Finally, enjoy it! Award writing is our industry condensed into its purest form: persuasion. And as we all know, persuasion often comes from irrational things like likeability. So with the foundations in place don’t be afraid to have fun. Sometimes
the most memorable entries end up rising to the top, not simply because the work was great but because after reading 20 entries that one finally made a judge smile. And sometimes that’s all it takes to push an entry from good to great.
Good luck!
Photo: Together winning the IAB NZ 2024 Digital Advertising Award for Best Brand Campaign.
