Christa Fallarino, one of Marden-Kane’s Promotion Coordinators, contributed this informative article on what judging a contest entails.

Are you looking to run a promotion to engage your consumers? A contest is a great way for a company to connect with consumers. More specifically a contest is a great promotional tool to generate involvement in which a consumer can enter by completing a specific task – submitting an essay, photo or video.

So you know the basics… what’s next?

When setting up your contest the official rules will need to include a set judging criteria. This will be the backbone and scoring “how-to” guide for your judges when judging and scoring each entry.

Wait —  I need to judge every entry?

Yes, all skills contests must have expert and/or public judging of entries impartially in accordance with the criteria listed in the official rules. The objective of judging is to determine the highest scoring entries, AKA your winner!

Before beginning the judging process, each judge should read and familiarize themselves with the Official Rules that govern the contest. Judges should judge each entry on its own merit. Entries should not be compared to one another.

During the judging process, frequent breaks should be taken.  Try not to judge for more than 2 hours without taking a break.  Each entry deserves undivided attention, and if the judging process goes on too long, the entries may not be scored fairly.  Judges….get up, walk around, and take breaks!

To learn more about running a skill contest and judging, contact us.

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