Speaking at The Drum’s Predictions, judges and past winners said award-winning work in 2026 will hinge less on polish and budget and more on clarity, judgment and proof that an idea actually worked.
For anyone who has ever looked at a piece of work and wondered whether it was “good enough” to win, Lynn Lester opened the Awards Connect session at The Drum’s Predictions with a familiar question. “You look at your work and think, we’ve kind of got something here,” she said. “But there’s a doubt in the back of your head. Is it a winner?”
The panel’s answer was reassuring and uncomfortable in equal measure. Winning work is rarely about scale alone. But it does demand discipline, perspective and respect for the judges’ time.
Sarah Henderson, managing director and chief client officer at PrettyGreen, used the agency’s Peppa Pig campaign as a case study in how awards extend the life of good work rather than simply celebrate it.
“That campaign keeps working for us,” she said. “People still call us and say, ‘You’re the agency that did the Mummy Pig campaign.’ It creates sustained fame beyond when the campaign is live.”
Awards, Henderson added, also reinforce client relationships. “It’s that feeling of brand and agency being in it together. We created this together. And culturally, it matters inside the agency too.”
Advertisement
But celebrating wins was not the focus of the session. The real value came from judges explaining what separates strong entries from forgettable ones.
Khalid Aziz, marketing director for B2B at Canon UK & Ireland, broke judging down into three essentials. “First, planning,” he said. “Not just a plan, but evidence of thinking before execution. Research, testing, learning.”
Second was execution. “Storytelling, creativity, emotional and rational reasons to believe,” he said. “And then ROI.”
That final point, he stressed, often trips people up. “It’s not just the initial result. The entries that stood out showed how results compounded over time. What happened three to six months later?”
One of the most common misconceptions, the panel agreed, is that smaller budgets cannot compete. Rory Sutherland, vice-chairman at Ogilvy UK, dismissed that outright.
“My basic criterion is whether you see something and go, ‘Damn, I wish I’d thought of that,’” he said. “It really doesn’t matter how big the budget was.”
Awards, he argued, are especially important in categories like B2B and direct marketing, where great work often goes unseen. “Unless you happen to be buying industrial pumping equipment, you might never see the best B2B work,” he said. “Awards make that visible.”
Where entries fail is usually not in the idea but in how it is presented.
Aziz pointed to simple but costly mistakes. “Make it easy for the judge,” he said. “I judged 26 awards across multiple categories. Some links didn’t work. Some videos didn’t load. That matters.”
Henderson added that repetition is another issue. “You can see the same entry cloned across multiple categories,” she said. “But each category is different. Judges notice when an entry hasn’t been tailored.”
Client testimonials, too, often fall flat. “Everyone includes one,” Aziz said. “But it has to link directly to what you said you were trying to do and why it worked.”
Advertisement
Sutherland offered a broader caution about awards culture itself. “You’ve got to both love them and hate them,” he said. Awards showcase great work and give people something to aspire to. But they also risk becoming targets rather than measures.
“They’re a brilliant metric but a terrible target,” he said. “When people start chasing league tables, it distorts judgment.”
Some of the most effective campaigns, he noted, never win awards. Others win awards without moving the business. “You can produce brilliant work that doesn’t win. You can produce award-winning work that doesn’t move the needle.”
The solution is not to abandon awards but to keep perspective. For Lester, that perspective starts with remembering who is judging.
“We deliberately use brand judges,” she said. “They’re looking for partners. They’re critical in different ways. And they’re asking, ‘Would this work for my business?’”
Advertisement
That brand lens is also why clarity matters so much. Henderson’s advice was simple. “Give the entry to someone who wasn’t involved,” she said. “Give it to your mum. Give it to a friend. If they don’t understand what you did and why it mattered, the judge probably won’t either.”
Aziz closed with a reminder that storytelling still matters, even in data-heavy categories. “Tell a clear story. Show emotional and rational impact. And make the ROI make sense over time.”
Lester’s final tip was practical. “The exec summary is one of the most important parts of the entry,” she said. “It’s the first thing a judge reads. Engage them there.”
And if a nomination comes? “Market the hell out of it,” she added. “People remember who gets shortlisted.”
In 2026, the panel agreed, awards are not about chasing trophies for their own sake. They are about showing that good thinking, well executed and honestly measured, still matters and still stands out when judges sit down to decide what really deserves to win.
Ogilvy
Ogilvy has been creating impact for brands through iconic, culture-changing, value-driving ideas since the company was founded by David Ogilvy 75 years ago. It builds...
Canon