UK Sponsorship Awards 2025 - Guidelines for Entry - plus key thoughts from the judging team

Within the entry, the following headings should be considered (in the order in which they appear).
 
1. Campaign background
Why was sponsorship, and this sponsorship project in particular, chosen to fulfil the communication requirement? Make reference to the selection process. Explain why this project was the right one for your business purposes. What did the business seek to achieve? Appropriateness to business goals and originality are key.  Judges will be looking to see evidence of sound strategic pre-planning.  Give evidence of your understanding of your target audience.

Campaigns showing particular evidence of innovation will be put forward for the Sponsorship Innovation of the Year Award 

2. Objectives
Be as specific as possible about what the campaign was designed to achieve and why (what its targets were – image shift, sales uplifts, return on investment etc.) and define your target market.

3. Execution and exploitation
Be as specific as possible about the mechanics of the sponsorship, the creative exploitation of the project (what tools were used to really make it work) and how it was communicated to its audiences.  Talk about how the campaign was promoted, the innovative exploitation of social media, the effective use of new platforms, apps, etc.  Outline potential for future opportunities and long term benefits. 
 
4. Outcome and evaluation
Relate results to original core objectives and provide researched results. If the campaign is on-going, provide results to date.
 
Whilst creativity and innovation are both very important criteria, the judges will be looking for evidence of effectiveness based on the objectives established at planning stage and on measurement of the results obtained to date. Highlight what you consider makes your campaign particularly outstanding/groundbreaking.

Word Count:  1,200 max (not including the 100 word executive summary).  Please prepare your submission offline and ensure that you have saved it. The system will not save an unsubmitted entry.   Entry submissions will need to be cut and pasted into the online entry form.  Any fonts or typesizes will not be saved to ensure that all entries are judged on content and not style.  Please note that entries which include charts within the submission should be uploaded as either a word document or a PDF (you will be given the opportunity to do this when you begin to complete the entry form).  We would also ask you to cut and paste the text parts of your document into the relevant boxes.  

KEY THOUGHTS FROM OUR JUDGING TEAM

We asked members of our 2024 judging team to give their top tips for a winning entry.

“The essence of a winning entry is about impact, originality, fit with the property and a sense of shared vision and purpose.

It should utilise a range of impactful assets and channels, plus have resonance with consumers.”

“The clear exposition of an interesting and creative approach taken to address a clearly-identified challenge or opportunity, supported by compelling quantitative and qualitative evidence.”

"Clear rationale for the sponsorship /partnership.

Clear evidence of benefit / delivery against objectives for both partners. 

Outcome and impact focused rather than outputs (ie increase in sales, participation, trust etc., rather than reach, number of posts/pieces of coverage).

Creative execution - creativity and innovation."

"Answer the questions: Background, Objectives, Execution, Outcome – incredible how many entries don’t do this.

Signpost the entry – we read lots of them, make it simple to understand and find the relevant information

Talk about what you are doing next, brands don’t stop at the end of an activation…what can you / are you doing differently as no sponsorship or partnership is perfect

Use the attachments as a way of showcasing the work, e.g. If you have created video content, include a video of it, not just an image

Video summaries of the campaigns really bring things to life, if you can include one, please do so"

"For me a finalist entry needs to have two key things. 

1. Objectives & measurement. It still amazes me how few entries have some proper pre-event or pre-sponsorship goals or KPIs and then how few of them are measured, interrogated and learned from. Sponsorship is so versatile and can do so much but part of its challenge is that the objectives aren’t set out, communicated and measured against. This is an essential challenge for the whole industry and marketers are now so used to being able to measure campaign benefits to the nth degree, especially when so much of that is digital."

2) Creativity. Not everything needs to be groundbreaking - indeed most of the target market aren't always looking for groundbreaking - but the campaign and its execution needs to be able to clearly demonstrate thought and creativity in how the sponsorship has been brought to life. 

"What makes a stand out entry for me are those that:

State clear objectives 

If these can be quantified in some way even better

Tell me why sponsorship was the answer to the brief

Explain clearly what they did and why

Have good results that relate back to the stated objectives

Inspire admiration"

"The key advice I would give on this is keep the objectives to the point and simple, and then thread them through the awards, crucially linked to measurement. Too many entries either try to show that they have covered every possible objective there could be which results in the thread being lost and/or they lose the thread between objectives and results which renders their entry difficult to quantify – and therefore, give an award to."

SUPPORTING MATERIAL

Illustrations: You may upload up to four illustrations of the campaign.  Each upload can be one image or a composite of images.  200MB is the maximum file size. 

Video links can also be embedded within the text (particularly if they are very large).  Please ensure however that the supporting illustrative material is just that and not integral to the core entry.  Please also ensure that your links do not have an early expiry.  Judging will take place mid February.  

Please select illustrations which could be used in an AV presentation if the entry is successful in being shortlisted (only stills will be used in the presentation). They must be high resolution images (300 dpi in jpeg, tiff, png, gif, pdf, mp3, mp4, wmf avi and ppt formats).  If possible, when uploading the files, please use relevant tag. Please avoid spaces, special characters and keep filenames to under 30 characters.  

RIGHTS HOLDER AWARD

The purpose of this category is to showcase rights holder organisations that have used their assets to maximise their income streams and provide better and more attractive offerings for potential sponsors and partners.

The three awards on offer are for: Arts Rights Holder, Media Rights Holder and Sports Rights Holder. Unlike the majority of UKSA’s awards, these three new categories will not focus on the strength of a single campaign. Instead, they will look at the success of organisations as facilitators of sponsorship across the entire year.

UKSA’s judges will look at everything individual rights holders have done to make their platform more appealing to sponsors. They will look at new business wins, returning clients, and examples of creativity and innovation. Overall, the new awards are an opportunity to shine the spotlight on a broader range of industry work.

The Arts Rights Holder award might celebrate a cultural venue that has revamped its approach to individual exhibitions, securing a new profile of sponsor. The Media Rights Holder category could be a broadcaster, radio station or social media platform that has created innovative branded content opportunities for sponsors. In Sports, the winner could be a club that has reorganised its official provider tier and secured important new revenues as a result.

Judges will reward organisations that have a clear understanding of the identification and profile of their audiences, who have mined, sliced and diced their databases to ensure that they are sending the most appropriate and effective messages to engage fans with their sponsor partners. 

The judges will also be looking to see how effectively this has been communicated to the marketplace and that the marketing and sales teams are working together to offer a ‘best fit’ opportunity with optimum activation possibilities for partners.  Judges will want to see innovation and invention - an inventory of assets which stand out from the norm.

Entries should be written with the following headings in mind:

1. Evaluation of assets.  These include:  audience, fan base, membership/season ticket holder databases, broadcast and digital media exposure, branding and activation opportunities, corporate hospitality offerings, facilities, access to ambassadors, community outreach, use of technology, etc.

2.  Activation of those assets.  How have these assets been best used to create a proposition and benefit current partners and encourage new business. State original objectives and outline delivery. What research is in place?  What delineates your offering/positioning from competitors?

3. Evidence of success.  Give examples of how the activation of assets has translated into material benefits.  Show how your inventory of assets has been presented ina way that challenges the norm - in terms of efficiency, effectiveness and creativity.