Award Manager Update - March 2020

I’m Ulli Maas, the recently appointed GM Award Programs here at BETTER FUTURE (previously Head of Operations). To make the most of these strange times we are all going through, the team and I taking the next month as an opportunity to clean up the business and bring it into the Next Phase. As we roll these changes out in the coming weeks, you can expect to see updated branding, logo packs and changes to the Awards Portal— improving the user experience for all our Award Managers. We are focussed on what we can do to best help Award Managers to drive project/studio brand and extend recognition for the team, clients and suppliers.

Recognition Levels
Earlier this year, we upgraded our Award Programs’ system to four levels of recognition: Level 1 – Selected Project; Level 2 – Shortlisted; Level 3 – Silver; Level 4 – Gold. Each level will now receive a certificate of recognition, and Silver and Gold projects will receive a trophy. The addition of Selected and certificates was based on repeating feedback from fellow Award Managers. If you have feedback or ideas about how the awards could best help you and your team then drop us a line and let us know.

Rating Model
We have also made some significant changes to our Award Programs Rating Model. In the last few years we have seen the rating model being misused as a PR/Marketing popularity voting process. This is not how the ratings model works, and so we have decided to end the general public ratings. This means that projects will now only be rated by our 300+ jury of global design executives and experts. To effect this change, we removed the open invitation to ‘Rate This Project’ last week. We apologise if this has interrupted your communications strategy, but as I’m sure you can all appreciate, we want to make sure that our projects are being rated under a fair system that recognises projects for their merit, not popularity.

Upcoming changes…

FAQ – Help
We are rewriting our FAQ and Help information pages to make it easier for Award Managers to easily find the answers to our most commonly asked questions.

Category Models
We will be restructuring our Award Programs Categories in the coming weeks. In the meantime, continue to submit as you have been and the team will be on deck to answer any questions and help you through the transition.

Branding and VI
We are working with Fiona Brand from Brand by Design to roll out an updated brand and visual identity for the Award Programs. This will include updated logo packs – again thanks for the community feedback. We want to make sure you have all the resources needed to amplify your projects recognition level.

Portal Console
In the next month you will notice a series of tweaks across the site, designed to simplify user experience and create an engaged nomination process.