Independent judgement first, deliberation second. The order is the safeguard: a juror who has seen the room before recording their own view is no longer an independent opinion, and a panel of those is one opinion repeated.
Administrators check eligibility and completeness: geography, period, category fit, required sections, working assets, credits and declarations. This is a rules check, made before any juror sees the entry, and it is never described as a judgement about the work.
Each assigned juror scores the entry alone against the published rubric, records a verdict of Advance, Borderline or Not Award-Worthy, and comments. A comment is required for any low score or negative verdict. Nothing about the panel is visible until the juror submits.
Once the independent round closes, the panel view opens: average and median, the full distribution rather than just the average, the vote split, the metal recommendations, comments and the flags for disagreement or evidence concerns. A juror may then revise their own decision.
The panel decides what, if anything, the category awards. Nothing is automatic, no ladder is filled for the sake of it, and a category can close with no award on a recorded vote.
The Grand Prix is selected from Gold-level work and can be withheld. Derived honours such as Agency of the Year are computed from the published points model and then ratified, and the Grand Jury may withhold an honour if an integrity concern remains.
The category is locked, and a final snapshot of scores, verdicts and rationale is stored. Any change after that requires an incident record, Awards Admin approval and Jury Chair acknowledgement.
The bands are decision support, not a formula. A score qualifies an entry for consideration at a level. It never awards it.
( 02 — 04 )| Weighted score | Guidance | What it does not mean |
|---|---|---|
| 86 to 100 | Gold consideration | Not automatic. The panel may still award Silver, Bronze or nothing. |
| 78 to 85.99 | Silver consideration | Decision support only. |
| 70 to 77.99 | Bronze consideration | Decision support only. |
| 65 to 69.99 | Shortlist consideration | May be discussed. No automatic metal. |
| 55 to 64.99 | Borderline | Discussed where flagged or where the category is close. |
| Below 55 | Normally not award-worthy | Can still be discussed if the circumstances are unusual. |
Where the panel finds no entry in a category meets the standard, the category closes as No Award. That is a normal outcome of the process, and the reason the metals in the categories that do award carry weight.
Published before judging opens, so the method is known to everyone in advance. Points from repeated entries of the same campaign are capped, so a tally cannot be gamed by multiple-entering one idea.
( 04 — 04 )| Achievement | Points |
|---|---|
| Grand Prix | 12 |
| Direct Agency Award, Gold | 10 |
| Work Gold | 8 |
| Direct Agency Award, Silver | 6 |
| Work Silver | 5 |
| Direct Agency Award, Bronze | 4 |
| Work Bronze | 3 |
| Shortlist | 1 |