Since 1995, Association of Marketing and Communication Professional judges have earned a reputation for accuracy, fairness and credibility. A look at the list of winners is a who's who of the industry.
In an effort to ensure consistency, entries are judged in-house and not sent out to various judges. It takes about eight weeks of judging, eight hours a day, to review all of the work that is submitted in each competition. Judges are senior-level, experienced professionals residing in the Dallas area. They are free-lancers or own their own businesses. They are selected based on experience and availability.
There is no preset number of winners in a category. Entries are judged at random and not directly compared to other entries in their category.
Judges do not attempt to evaluate the worth of an entry through stated results, but rather assess each entry for its apparent creative achievement. 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 ad is not held to the same expectation as a piece produced by a Madison Avenue agency for a Fortune 50 company.
Utilizing a consensus judging system, the 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 Honorable Mention recognition.