The B&T Awards are a-closin’ in just three days – two and a half if you want to get technical. The on-time entries closed last week on Friday afternoon, but because we understand the pressures of binge-watching TV the industry, we let you submit late entries. And this closes on Friday, August 12, at 5pm.

It might be time to freak out now. But to keep you calm and help make your entries fiery and fabulous, we’ve got some final tips to get you across the line.

The awards are held at the Sydney Town Hall on Friday November 18. Tickets will also sell out fast so get yourself some ASAP, buy tickets here.

Submit B&T Awards entry here. 

CLASSIC ERRORS ENTRIES MAKE:

– Did not receive an email to confirm my login – if you’ve tried a few times and still no confirmation email has arrived, please email viv@bandt.com.au and we can confirm on the backend. But please don’t leave this until the closing date, register your login TODAY.

– Not sticking to word count – word count is calculated differently on different systems. So instead of leaving until the last minute (e.g. award closing date) before you load up your entry onto the submission portal, double check it so you don’t find that you’re over the word limit when it’s too late to change.

– Logged in on multiple devices – our submission portal has some auto-save features, which means if you’re logged on onto your entry on multiple devices, they’ll keep saving over each other. Please log in on ONE device at a time.

– How do I pay – there’s a shopping cart symbol on the top right hand side of every page of the portal, once you submit an entry, it’ll be added to the cart. You can submit multiple entries this way by adding them onto the cart.

– If in doubt, log off, and log back in again – I’m not sure why that solves problems, but that’s the number one thing to try whenever you call tech support, so give that a go first.

– Writing in all caps or lower case – self-explanatory, just don’t do it, it’s bad use of grammar and hard for the judges to read (special exception for brand names which are in all caps or lower case).

– Ensure the person who’s submitting the entry is not on leave while shortlist announcements are made.

MEET THE JUDGES

The jury for each category will be carefully selected to include senior marketers, industry consultants, and people from related, but not competing sectors. This year all of our judges are 100 per cent non-agency, so there’s no conflict of interest for entering agencies. All judges are required to sign a nondisclosure declaration ahead of judging.

WHAT MAKES A WINNING ENTRY

One of the B&T Awards judges said a winning entry needs: “To be a B&T Award winner I feel you need to be both creative, in ways other aren’t, and consistent because a one-off is only that. One bold idea is nice but delivering for your clients on an on-going basis makes you reliable and noteworthy.”

WORST ENTRY MISTAKES

One of the B&T Awards judges said the worst mistake you can make is: “Claiming work as yours that was done by several agencies and not being clear on contribution. Too many times the same campaign is claimed by more than one agency.

“Also, being clear on which category you are entering – I have seen same campaign across more than one category with no change in submission.”