By Peter Zanatta
I spend a fair amount of time sitting on judging panels for industry awards. This year, over the Christmas period, that included judging the Data Centre World Awards (DCW). I also judge the Global Connectivity Awards (GCA) later in the year. Take a look at them if you’re curious, or brave enough to enter.
Judging awards is not, strictly speaking, a festive activity. There’s no turkey, no tree, and goodwill evaporates quickly once the fifth vague submission of the evening lands in your inbox. But it is revealing. You get a front-row seat to what the industry thinks is impressive, and, more importantly, what it thinks will pass for evidence.
For every genuinely strong submission, there are at least four poor ones. Not “nearly there” poor. Fundamentally poor. And the reason is almost always the same.
They don’t answer the damn question. This may sound obvious, but you’d be amazed at how many entries fall at the first hurdle. If the question asks for proof of growth, don’t tell me you’ve seen “major gains” or “significant improvement”. Those phrases mean absolutely nothing. They are the corporate equivalent of saying you’ll “definitely go to the gym next year”. Admirable intent. But like me, late in the evening, when someone mentions the gym, it has zero credibility.
Judges aren’t hostile. We are, however, a sceptical bunch of so-and-sos by default. That scepticism exists because every entry claims to be the “leading”, “best-in-class”, or “most innovative” solution on the market. Strangely, they all say this using almost identical language, usually lifted straight from the company’s latest sales brochure.
Which brings me neatly to the second most common failure: recycled marketing copy. Judges spot it instantly. We’ve read your website. We’ve read your pitch deck. We’ve probably read something very similar from three of your competitors. Copying and pasting product descriptions into an awards submission without explanation, context, or outcome is a fast way to lose credibility. It’s also a good way to irritate judges enough that they need to step away, make a cup of tea, and consciously remind themselves not to take it out on the next entrant.
Awards are not about what your product is. They’re about what it did. Differentiation matters. Impact matters more. If you claim to be better than everyone else, you need to prove it. And “prove” is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that sentence. It means numbers, outcomes, timelines, and consequences, ideally all four.
Which leads to the third, and perhaps most painful, weakness, the total absence of data. Statements like “we are the biggest and the best” are meaningless without numbers. So are promises about what will happen next year. Every year we’re told that revenues will double, costs will halve, or customers will save millions of pounds. That’s nice. So is my teenage son telling me he’s going to be a film director when he leaves uni. I wish him well, but I’m not investing on that basis. (OK, secretly I hope he does achieve this, I like the idea of walking down the red carpet, I guess I am as guilty as some of the marketing teams).
Awards judging is much closer to a maths exam than an English essay. You don’t get marks just for the answer, you get marks for showing your working. Writing “£10m saved” without explaining how is like scribbling “42” on the page and expecting full marks. It doesn’t work at school, and it certainly doesn’t work in a judging room.
Judges are interested in what has already happened. If you’ve saved a customer a million pounds, show us how. If performance improved, by how much? Over what period? Compared to what baseline? If you don’t have hard numbers, say so, and explain why. A weak explanation is still better than an imaginary result.
What surprises me most is that none of this is complicated. You don’t need grand narratives or marketing poetry. You need clarity, honesty, and evidence.
So, if you’re thinking about entering awards like DCW or GCA, here’s the short version:
- Answer the question directly. Not approximately.
- Show your working. Numbers, percentages, timelines.
- Explain the impact. What changed because you or your product or service were involved?
- Differentiate clearly. If a competitor could submit the same entry with their logo swapped in, you haven’t done enough.
- Be credible. Judges respect realism far more than ambition dressed up as fact.
After years of judging, my rule is simple, I’m not here to be impressed. I’m here to be convinced.
If you can’t prove what you’re claiming, don’t dress it up and hope for the best. We’ve seen it before. We’ll see straight through it again.
And no, “best-in-class” still doesn’t count as evidence unless you’re a graduating film student planning a Hollywood blockbuster.
