Entry Information

Entries

The competition is designed for the convenience of the entrant. You have the option of entering online and uploading your entries/web addresses or sending in entry forms with entries. Since each entry is judged on its own merits, no accompanying materials or explanations are necessary.

To enter, write a web location on the entry form below the title of entry (file sharing sites like YouTube, Hulu, Vimeo or YouSendIt are acceptable). Audio, video and web entries can also be submitted on CD or DVD (NTSC, most formats are acceptable). Multiple productions can be on one media source as long as they are listed on the source menu. If you send in your entries, please attach a copy of Form A to each entry. Submit only one copy of each entry. There are no special labeling or color bar requirements for video. An entry may be submitted in more than one category at an additional cost. However it is not necessary to send an additional copy for each category.

Platinum winning entrants who submit digital entries online will have the opportunity to have their work displayed in our online winner's gallery if they grant permission on the online entry form.

Eligibility

The competition is open to all individuals, companies and organizations involved in producing any type of project involving digital media for external or internal audiences. To be eligible, an entry must have been produced after January 1, 2010 (almost a 2-year window).

Entry Fee

Ava Awards is trying to keep entry fees at reasonable levels. Instead of charging several hundred dollars per entry, the entry fee is $50 per category. Rather than increase the fee for each entry, an administration fee is being charged to help offset increasing overhead such as printing, mailing and data entry. Each entrant is charged a $25 AMCP administration fee. By charging each entrant the same administration fee, entrants entering more than one category will be paying less than if the entry fee were increased.

If an entry is submitted in more than one category, please enclose an additional entry fee for each time it is entered.

Judging

Over the past two decades, Association of Marketing and Communication Professionals’ judges have earned a reputation for accuracy, fairness and credibility.

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 project is not held to the same expectation as a piece produced by a Madison Avenue agency for a Fortune 500 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.

Pro Bono Entries

AMCP recognizes the talents and generosity of the creative community and does not charge for entries produced pro bono for outside non-profits. Only entrants who enter a regular piece in the competition are eligible to enter pro bono work at no cost. This is a perk for those who help defray costs of overhead, mailings, judging etc.

You can only have one pro bono entry per client. Multiple pieces count as one entry. You can however have an unlimited number of pro bono clients. Please fill out the pro bono form found on this page and include a brief synopsis of what you did for each pro bono client. You should not have received any compensation. It is ok for the non-profit or others to have paid for hard costs such as materials. You will be judged on creativity and the extent of your effort.

If you want to submit pro bono work only, you must pay the regular AMCP and entry fees.

Terms of Use

Ava Awards recognizes that many of the entries are internal or proprietary in nature, or are done for the government or another company, so unless you grant permission for your entries to be displayed in our winner’s gallery, only the judges will see your work. Entries will not be returned unless special arrangements are made. Immediately after judging, each hard copy entry is destroyed, each electronic entry not granted permission to be displayed is deleted. No entrant information is sold, traded, made available to a third party or used for any other purpose.