Judging

Each category is judged by a panel of 3 individuals.

One of these judges is from the category sponsor’s business.The other two are individuals from the marketing community who we have invited.

We run all of the judges through a bias check before allocating them to a category, to ensure the process is as fair as it can be.

After the free nominations have been submitted, these are then shortlisted based on a points system, before being handed to our panels of judges.

The judges read the shortlisted submissions and are encouraged to judge the nomination, rather than judge the person nominated. We recommend the judges don’t research the nominees, and simply go by what they learn through the nomination.

In the judging meeting, they collectively decide on the finalists. Following that, each judge privately submits their chosen winner to NWM, to ensure there is no coercion in the meeting. The majority vote wins.

While a member of the NWM Advisory Board is present in each judging meeting, we act as a silent witness and have no say or influence over the decisions.

As an organisation, we’re dedicated to making these awards as fair as possible – ensuring everyone has an equal chance.

The judges will be presented with the shortlist of nominees and will mark each nomination out of 25.

There are 3 key questions in stage 3 of the nomination form, each of these hold equal weighting and will be marked out of 7 points.

Each nomination form offers the chance to add testimonials or additional evidence – there are 4 extra points that can awarded for these, based on the individual judge’s discretion.