Reminder – Global Digital Signage Awards Submissions Close Today

September 30, 2020 by Dave Haynes

A final reminder that today is the end of September – yay, 2020 is gone in three more months!!! – and that means it is the last day for entry submissions to the global Digital Signage Awards, which 16:9 helps sponsor and guide.

The UK team that puts together the awards has had to pivot, like everyone else, in the last six months. The plan was to hand them out at a dinner in Barcelona in February, during ISE 2021. Now the show has shifted to June.

Says the awards team: With the announcement by ISE that their show will move to June or later we have decided to announce the Digital Signage Awards winners on February 3, but avoid the Covid-19 risks associated with a physical event and stream the Awards presentation over the Internet.

Ideally, the online host will be Alan Deadicot, the longtime BBC announcer. He did the event back in February, and was brilliant. Very funny man.

While the award announcements are still months away, the awards team needs to get moving on several things – notably judging. Unlike some awards programs, being a finalist and winning both have to do with the quality of work, not whether a company bought a table for the awards night or wrote a sponsor check (that happens).

ALL of the judges are knowledgeable, respected industry people (and not trade journalists or others with limited grasps of what was done and why). The entries are carefully scored and the winners and citations of merit go to those companies who scored well and resonated with people who know what they’re looking at and judging. 

I have watched or reviewed the  awards from some other programs, and wondered how the <naughty word> did that win, other than a lot of money was thrown at something and it had a short shelf-life Wow Factor.

One of the barriers to entry for awards programs has been the reticence of busy companies to allocate the time and resources to develop, complete and submit all the paperwork and materials. The global DSA program has been streamlined so that is simple and fast, and the cost is nominal.

On the flip side, the benefits are big. As I have noted in the past numerous times, award-winning is a far more meaningful and impactful descriptor for a company than empty but heavily used terms like “leading”.  

I regularly see and write about stuff that I think, “Well, that will win an award.” But the people behind it don’t enter. Other projects that win are often ones I didn’t even know about, so those companies “get” the value.

These are the 2021 categories for awards:

Sector categories

The best overall project executions by market sector – reflecting strategy, technical and creative decision-making, choice of network or sites, and results:

Content & Creativity

To find the best of the campaigns and content: informing, entertaining and enhancing the customer experience. The judges will decide the winners based on:

Technical Design & Innovation

To find the best innovation across digital signage, including manufacturers, installers, network providers and content providers. Again, the judges may decide that there should be more than one winner as entrants must evidence technical advances in any of the following areas of expertise:

Outstanding Individual or Company (sponsored by SIXTEEN:NINE)

Nominations are invited from around the world. If you know someone or some company is doing brilliant work to improve digital signage then you should put their name forward using the nomination form.  

Grand Prix (sponsored by Gable)

There will be one top accolade awarded by the judges to the company whose entry or entries they consider to be the best in show from all the category winners and high commendations winners.

I have nattered away numerous times in this space about the importance of companies entering awards. The short version is:

Given all that is going on, and all that is NOT going on as a result (like trade shows, conferences, showcases and sales calls), company marketers should absolutely have the time and interest in entering this and other awards.

Make the effort. More information here …

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