^#smrgSAHAF The Glow of Success : the Annual 2006 - Strategy Creativity Results - 2016

As we all appreciate, great work isn't great work unless it works. And while there are plenty of competitions out there that recognise beautiful work whether it drove one sale or a million, this isn't one of them.
At the DMA Awards, of course we value stunning creative (you only need to flick through the following pages to see that), But without a robust, insightful strategy to drive it and solid response rates to prove that work 'exceeded expectations', even the most jaw-dropping campaign will find it hard to get a gong here.
The judging process itself is a bit like a courtroom battle. After the initial round up of prospective candidates, generally a very lengthy process sifting through all the evidence, there is a recess whilst the marks are added up to find the shortlist. Then the defence and prosecution take the stand for each and every piece on the floor. Passions run high, and blood boils over. Sometimes opinions are black and white, at other times the three finalists just shine out before you. When there are as many as 15 judges in the room, all highly qualified professional individuals with years of experience, it's not surprising that there is much debate and division. What is surprising though is that there is eventually a concensus and this year, Gold, Silver and Bronze have been awarded in every category.

The robustness of the DMA Awards' judging process means that only the very best work that fulfills all the criteria gets through. On the actual Awards night, rest assured, those who do the walk to the podium through the mass of glittering tables and applause from their peers are truly deserving. The winner of the Grand Prix has made it through not only the individual judging panels but also past a further elite group of judges who have the unenviable task of selecting just one star from all the Gold winners.

This year, there were over 800 entries. First Direct were the big winners of the evening scooping the Grand Prix with their lovely mailer from Craik Jones. On page 97, you'll see that they also won a Gold in the Consumer Direct Mail (Low Volume) category with the work produced by Story. Other Golds from Craik Jones include the Refuge piece in Creative Solutions (page 117) and Virgin Trains (page 85). Story picked up other Golds too in Online Advertising (page 73) and Launches (page 129) for their excellent work for The Glenmorangie Company Other notable Gold winners included the amazing 20:20 mailing for Sony PlayStation (page 77), the beautiful Partners Andrew Aldridge campaign for Haringtons Hairdressers (page 81), Kitcatt Nohr's stunningly well-written Samaritans piece (page 109), the very clever emails from Dare for AA Insurance (page 69) and the ever-present Harrison Troughton Wunderman for their integrated campaign for The National Phobics Society. As you'll see from the following pages, every Gold winner deserves to be incredibly proud of their achievement.

When you look through the annual, you might be interested to note that the explanatory copy accompanying each entry is taken directly from its entry form. When you read these, you'll see that many agencies take as much care and attention crafting their entry as they did creating the work in the first place. There's a good reason for this. Each entry is a direct response piece in its own right. Only this time, the required response is either Bronze, Silver or preferably Gold. This is worth remembering when you come to enter next year's DMA Awards. Attention, Interest, Desire, Action- just as relevant in front of an Award's jury as it is a cold prospect

We hope you enjoy reading this Annual. It makes us very proud to be able to showcase the fantastic work produced in our industry-work that just keeps getting better.