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Excellence in National or Local Education Meetings/Stand-Alone Events
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This award recognises domestic meetings series or standalone events that successfully address unmet educational needs via the integration of national clinical/professional expertise and experts in the field, who are known and respected by their peers for their dedication and integrity.
The meetings/event(s) should cater for national and local delegates and provide robust guidance which are consistent with national guidelines and applied in the local setting of each delegate.
Entries must show how the activity has resulted in a positive change in awareness/understanding amongst delegates that will ultimately lead to delegate-initiated local education campaigns or changes in their own teaching/clinical practices. The entry must demonstrate how the educational content has increased awareness and knowledge of effective diagnoses/treatment, optimised patient care pathways and ultimately has the potential to improve standards of care.
Judges will want you to put your meetings/event(s) into context, at the outset, to clarify the rationale behind your strategy and tactics. They need to know what your ambitions were and how the meetings/event(s) were used to drive them.
Entries may be submitted for virtual or in-person national or local meetings. Entries should acknowledge/ credit the role of meeting organisers.
Work conducted between July 2018 and December 2020 will be eligible. However, where applicable, the next steps for the campaign should be included in the entry. If the submission has been entered previously, the current entry must provide benchmarks to clearly demonstrate how the programme was evaluated and how it has developed over time.
Remember: anonymise your entry.
Don’t forget:
- provide a copy of any previous submission for this work
- be open! Were there any other contributors to the programme?
JUDGING CRITERIA AND ENTRY FORMAT:
Entry Title
Please give a simple title for your entry of no more than ten words
Executive Summary – 200 words. 0 (zero) marks
This will be used if entry is selected as a finalist and does not need to be anonymised.
Main entry
- The word/character limit for each criterion will be outlined via the online entry system, which is new for 2021.
1. Budget Band Information, as below:
Band A under £10,000
Band B £10,001-£25,000
Band C £25,001-£50,000
Band D £50,001-£100,000
Band E £100,001-£200,000
Band F over £200,001.
If your client has declined to allow this, you must state this within your submission.
- Failure to provide the budget band seriously impacts the judge’s ability to assess the entry against other entries and may result in the entry being disqualified
- The budget band provides important context for judging the innovation, delivery and impact of a piece of work.
- Impressive work is not always dependent on budget size, so there is no right or wrong budget.
2. Situation Analysis and needs assessment – 15 marks (300 words)
- In this section you should show the judges how well you understood the situation at the start of the project, establishing a clear need for the initiative
- Use this situation to clearly lay out benchmark data that you will refer to in your measurement of effectiveness later
- Show the judges the best information, data and insights you have about uptake of health interventions, current practice, defining/ segmenting audiences, identifying educational or information needs, which channels will best reach the audience, competitive environment, creative landscape before the start of your work
Judges’ top tips
- We work and operate in a world where there is a wealth of data and insights, so there is really no excuse for projects and programmes that are planned without this data.
- The judges will reward the strength and robustness of this data i.e. a well conducted piece of client market research will score more highly than a two-question internal survey monkey
- The judges will reward the variety of data that prompts useful insights and helps to shape a holistic view of the situation and audiences.
3. Objectives – 15 marks (250 words)
- Describe the objectives for the project or programme and how these will be measured
Judges’ top tips
The judges will:
- Reward clarity of intent in the objectives and the way they are written
- Reward objectives focused on outcomes and measurable impact.
- Projects and programmes with objectives only around outputs or outtakes are unlikely to be marked highly in this section and are less likely to be shortlisted
- The SMARTer the objectives the more marks you will get. Sometimes it’s not realistic for every objective to be fully SMART – if the objectives are bit SMART, let the judges know why not
- Reward objectives that directly and clearly build on the data presented in the situation analysis
- Reward commentary on selection of measurement methods including innovation in measurement approaches.
4. Strategy – 15 marks (250 words)
- Please outline what your strategy was and why
- Refer to the data and insight in the situation analysis section
- Explain why this was the right strategy and any points to emphasise bold or innovative strategy selection
Judges’ top tips
The judges will:
- Reward clarity of thought around strategies and how they are communicated – bullet points may be better than long prose
- Assess how well the chosen strategy/ strategies might achieve objectives
- Reward entries showing a clever or insightful way that you interpreted the data and insights from the situation analysis to set your strategy
- Reward innovation in strategy
- Recognise how different communications disciplines are blended as part of the strategic approach.
5. Implementation – 15 marks (400 words)
- Please describe how you implemented the project or programme
- Please briefly outline why these specific tactics were selected
- For a programme this should include describing what tactics were deployed to implement the strategy
- For a meeting or stand-alone event this should describe how the meeting or event was delivered
Judges’ top tips
- The judges need to know what you did or developed to judge this section – please keep descriptions clear and succinct
- When awarding marks in this section the judges will reward:
- a logical selection of tactical projects or outputs
- creativity and innovation in the way you execute the tactics
- clever selection and maximisation of channels
- scientific acumen and robustness
- the use of insights in finding creative ways to engage the defined audiences.
6. Effectiveness: Outcomes vs Objectives – 20 marks (400 words)
- Show clearly how the programme or project delivered against the stated objectives
- Help the judges to understand how the effectiveness was measured so they can judge the strength of the evaluation
- Include comments from third party stakeholders in this section but ONLY if they clearly help to demonstrate the impact of the work and were a planned part of the measurement approach
Judges’ top tips
- The Communiqué Awards operate in line with the Barcelona Principles 3.0 outlining best practice in communication measurement and evaluation
- Focus on outcomes where possible – these will always be more highly marked than just outputs or outtakes
- Describe the measurement approaches used and briefly outline why they were appropriate.
- Beware of vanity metrics such as ‘Reach’ or Opportunities to See that don’t relate to achievement of an outcome
- Be really clear what was measured, when and how
Supporting Materials
Please remember that the first round of scoring is based only on the content of the two-page entry form. No supporting material is viewed at this stage.
Please only send information that helps the judges to see how you researched, planned, implemented and measured the programme within each specific category, e.g.:
- Information illustrating how the strategy was brought to life is helpful but we don’t need a copy of every item
- Information supporting the evaluation and measurement is the most relevant
- ESSENTIAL: a summary sheet must be supplied detailing each piece of supporting material and clearly identifying where evidence can be found to support claims in the entry
- PLUS: An approved visual image or video that supports the entry for use in print, results pages online and in the AV.
Category Sponsors
Key dates
| Entry deadline | 11 March 2021 |
| Extended entry deadline | 18 March 2021 (additional fee applies) |
| Judging days | May 2021 |
| Awards Ceremony | 1st July 2021 |
Contact information:
For sponsorship opportunities:
Sales Team
sales@pmlive.com
Tel: +44 (0)1372 414200
General event enquiries:
Debbie Tuesley
dtuesley@pmlive.com
Tel: +44 (0)1372 414243
