Terms and Conditions

1. THE IPM AWARDS 2023 is open to any promotional marketing or brand activation campaign that has run in any market worldwide and has been created and executed by an agency with a registered UK office, after 1st January 2022. Campaigns that have not concluded at the time of entry are eligible, but entrants should ensure they have enough robust results data to support the entry. Campaigns that started prior to 1st January 2022 but concluded after the said date are not eligible.
2. Campaigns that have been entered in a previous year’s IPM Awards and won an award are prohibited from entry into THE IPM AWARDS 2023. An exception will be made if a previously successful campaign has been run again with significant changes in the IPM’s judgement. The IPM’s decision is final.
3. A promotional marketing or brand activation campaign is defined as “any marketing initiative, the purpose of which is to create a call to action that has a direct and positive impact on the behaviour of a targeted audience by offering a demonstrable, though not necessarily tangible, experience, incentive, interaction or benefit.”
4. IPM Membership is not a requirement of entry, although Members receive significant reductions in entry fees.
5. Campaigns can be entered by brand owners, agencies, consultants or service providers, provided that all necessary permissions have been obtained in writing from the brand owner.
6. A campaign can be entered into a sector category along with a category in another group (excluding the Outstanding Team/Business category).
7. You can enter the same campaign into as many categories as you want.
8. If your campaign falls outside of a sector category, please contact awards@theipm.org.uk
9. Entry is via our online platform only, located here: www.theipm.awardsplatform.com.
10. Early bird deadline Friday 31st March 2023 6pm, Standard deadline Friday 21st April 2023 6pm, Late entry deadline Friday 5th May 2023 6pm. Entry prices vary depending on time of entry, for full entry pricing see the calls for entry brochure here. Entries submitted after the late entry deadline of Friday 5th May 2023 6pm will be accepted solely at the IPM’s discretion and must have been started prior to the late entry deadline date.
11. The pricing structure as detailed on page 19 of the Entry Pack is final and non-negotiable.
12. All entries must be paid for at the time of submission. prior to judging taking place. Unpaid entries will not be accepted.
13. Correct membership status needs to be disclosed at the time of entry. Failure to disclose the correct membership status may result in entries being withdrawn and entry fees being non-refundable.
14. All campaigns entered must be legal and comply with the UK Code of Non-broadcast Advertising, Sales Promotion & Direct marketing (The CAP Code), and the Experiential Marketing Code.
15. The Judges’ decision is final on all matters and no correspondence will be entered into.
16. Full Terms and Conditions (as provided to the consumer) must be submitted for all campaigns. Failure to do so will result in disqualification. If no Terms and Conditions were considered necessary (for example, for certain experiential activity), this must be clearly explained in the appropriate place on the entry form.
17. Panel Judging
    There are normally up to 8 panels of judges comprising a chair and not less than 4 members. Each panel is allocated a minimum of one category to judge. Panel members are all senior members of the promotional marketing industry of account director or marketing manager status or higher. Where possible panel members will be specialists in the fields that they are judging. The chairs of the panels are senior industry members and specialists in fields relevant to the categories they are judging. Chairs are unbiased and do not vote, their function is to moderate the panel session. If any judge feels that a Chair has shown any bias they can report this in confidence to the Head of Awards. Judges receive electronic copies of the entry and submission forms for a first round of online marking. They will study and mark these entries and place them in an order of preference following the guidelines given to them. The judging criteria and weightings given to these criteria will vary according to each category and this is published in the Handbook brochure for guidance. In each category, entry numbers permitting, a minimum of three entries will be selected to go through to the next panel judging sessions based on the combined scores given by the judges during the online marking. These entries will be identified as the ‘nominations’ and they will be published in a shortlist. The panels then discuss the nominations in each category and select the award winner(s). In each category, a Gold and Silver award will be selected. A Bronze award will be selected at the discretion of the panel. To achieve an award, an entry must have achieved a mark of 50% or more at the online stage. During judging the panel may elect not to award a Bronze (even if there are entries who received 50% or more at the online stage). In certain circumstances, the panel may award a Gold and a Silver only, two Golds and a Bronze or a Gold and two Silvers. In very exceptional circumstances, the panel may choose to not select any awards in a category (e.g. fewer than 3 entries in a category, all online scores below 50%) – in this instance, the category will be cancelled (note: the IPM will inform the entrants to that category but will not provide a refund for the entry). All departures from the standard Gold, Silver and Bronze awards must be discussed and agreed with the Head of Awards (whose decision is final).
18. Moderation and Vetting
    All judging is moderated to ensure fairness and equality between panels. Vested interests are monitored and removed from the process. An IPM moderator attends all panel sessions and reviews the results before panels depart. All nominations are vetted for compliance with THE IPM AWARDS 2023 Terms and Conditions as well as for CAP Code and legal compliance. Entries may be downgraded or disqualified at this stage.
19. Final Judging Panel
    A final panel considers all the entries that won Golds in each category to select the Grand Prix winner. The final panel will include the Chairs of each of the judging panels. All judging will be done online and anonymously. Each Chair will select their ‘top three’ campaigns in order of preference and allocate 3, 2, and 1 mark accordingly. The Grand Prix winner will be the campaign that collects the most points from the Chairs. In the event of a draw, the remaining campaigns will be subject to a second vote by the Chairs. If any Chair has not voted by the deadline outlined by the Head of Awards, their votes will be discarded.
20. The IPM reserves the right to verify all entries to THE IPM AWARDS 2023 and to refuse entry to the awards or provide an award where there are reasonable grounds to believe there has been abuse of the promotion of any kind or a breach of these terms and conditions, any instructions forming part of the THE IPM AWARDS 2023’s entry requirements or otherwise where any entrant has gained an unfair advantage in participating or won using fraudulent means.
21. If any of these clauses should be determined to be illegal, invalid or otherwise unenforceable then it shall be severed and deleted from these Terms and Conditions and the remaining clauses shall survive and remain in full force and effect.
22. The IPM has no control over internet networks and is not liable for any problems associated with them due to traffic congestion, technical malfunction or otherwise. The IPM will not be held liable to any individual for any fraud committed by any third party nor for any event beyond its control including, but not limited to, user error and any network, computer, hardware or software failures of any kind which may restrict, delay or prevent entry to the awards.
23. If for any reason any aspect of THE IPM AWARDS 2023 is not capable of running as planned, including by reason of infection by computer virus, network failure, traffic congestion, bugs, tampering, unauthorised intervention, fraud, technical failures or any other cause beyond the control of the IPM which corrupts or affects the administration, security, fairness, integrity or proper conduct of these awards, the IPM may in its sole discretion cancel, modify or suspend the awards or invalidate any affected entries.
24. Any question concerning the legal interpretation of the rules will be based on English law and the Courts of England and Wales will have exclusive jurisdiction unless you are registered in another part of the UK, in which case your local courts will have jurisdiction.
25. The IPM will only use the details supplied for the administration of the awards and for no other purpose. Your details will at all times be kept confidential and in accordance with current Data Protection legislation. Click Here for the IPM’s Privacy Policy. By participating in the promotion, entrants agree to the use of their data as described here.
26. By entering the awards, all entrants will be deemed to have accepted and be bound by the terms and conditions.