It’s crunch time for your 2025 Effie entries! If you joined our ‘How to Win’ webinar, you’d have heard legendary strategist, Effie judge and mentor, Al Crawford, share essential tips for crafting a winning paper.
A great starting point is reading past winning entries — and don’t forget to download our Guide to Writing an Effie. It’s packed with strategies to help you shape, edit, and refine your entry to ensure it stands out.
Below is a quick summary of how to tell the story of a campaign that smashed its objectives.
1. Shorter is sweeter
A meandering story loses judges, no matter how good the campaign was. Aim for lean, focused writing. Cut the fluff. As we say in the Guide: “Stick to the word count. Better still, come in underneath it.”
2. Think like an academic, write like a journalist
Judges need clarity and narrative flow. Effective entries are scrutinised like courtroom evidence. Build an argument that is watertight and compelling. That means strong logic, but also rhythm and pace. Accurate and interesting.
3. Assume nothing
The “curse of knowledge” kills clarity. You may know your category inside out, but your judges may not. Spell out acronyms. Define your market dynamics. Make it readable to someone fresh to your field because most likely, they will be.
4. Symmetry matters
The best papers have beautiful logic. The challenge sets up the objective. The objective defines the solution. The results clearly flow from that solution. If your story feels inevitable by the end, you’ve nailed it.
5. Show the chain of cause and effect
Creativity is important, but proof is more important. Don’t just say “sales went up.” Build the chain from comms to business results. Use charts. Use logic. Use plain English. And please — avoid “data doctoring.” A sharp judge will spot it in seconds.
6. Drama is allowed (even encouraged)
Yes, we’re serious about effectiveness. But that doesn’t mean your paper has to be dull. Give us tension. Paint the problem with stakes. Show the hustle behind the scenes. Let the reader feel the risk, the smarts, and the breakthrough moment. You’re not just listing tactics — you’re telling a transformation story.
7. Edit ruthlessly
To echo Hemingway (and our guide), “The first draft of anything is shit.” Start early. Test it with others. Redraft again. And again. Then hand it to someone with fresh eyes to attack it with a red pen.
Great campaigns deserve great writing
We’re proud to celebrate ideas that work — and we know that what gets awarded is what gets remembered, studied, and often replicated. A brilliantly executed idea deserves a brilliantly told story.
To all current and future Effie entrants: your work was brave, bold and brilliant, now, make the paper sing.
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Download ‘A Guide to Writing an Effie’ below to write an entry that does your work justice.