Entry guide

Rules and guidelines are valid for Jolbors Awards International and Jolbors Awards Central Asia

Jolbors Awards Central Asia accepts entries from agencies, companies, and specialists based in Central Asia only.

To be eligible, the works must have been executed (aired) between January 2024 and the present time, and haven’t been previously submitted to the Jolbors Awards International competition.

Works that are centered around religious and political ideas, feature in campaigns supporting global conflicts or one of the sides in a conflict, or depict ongoing warfare are not eligible.

Also, any works that may promote ethnic hatred or chauvinism will be rejected.

The judging of the entries will be done in 2 stages: individual judging to form a shortlist, when each judge marks entries as either fit for the shortlist or not. Entries with a passing grade are moved to the shortlist.

The second stage is forming the final shortlist and selecting the winners. The entire judging panel is gathered in person on the eve of the festival to collectively decide on the awards.

The shortlist is announced on the first day of the festival, and the winners are declared during the Jolbors Awards International ceremony, on the night of the second day of the festival.

In the event that one of the judges is a representative of the agency submitting the entry or an agency affiliated with it, they are barred from voting on the entry. During online judging, these works are hidden from them in the judging area, and during the offline discussion the judge must leave the room while the entry submitted by their agency or an agency affiliated with theirs is being discussed.

When submitting your works, note that most of the judging happens online, with the final decisions made offline. The online portion is the stage where the jury weeds out the submissions that are clearly subpar. While preparing your submissions, remember that the jury will see them on laptop and tablet screens.

The entry must be in the form of a case study video in English no longer than 3 minutes. We suggest keeping the runtime under 2 minutes. If the video is submitted in any other language without English subtitles, it will be rejected, and the submission fee will not be refunded. The video’s voiceover must be in English. If the video features people speaking in their native languages, subtitles must be provided.

Please reflect in your video the principal problem you identified, your main goal, describe your solution, and show the results. IMPORTANT: only real executions or campaigns, with real, tangible results, are eligible for entry. If your work is identified as fictitious, or results found to be fabricated, the entry will be immediately rejected and the submission fee forfeited. In the text description of your entry, please add enough context for your work to properly understand it. If your work features cultural references to a specific country, tradition, or issue which may be unfamiliar to the general public, describe their importance so that judges with all backgrounds can properly appreciate your idea.

For categories and nominations related to branding and print media, the respective materials must be uploaded in print quality.

Your entry should be extremely simple to understand. If the jury gets confused or misses an important point, your work will probably not receive the appreciation it deserves. There should be absolutely no question as to what it is, why it exists, and who it is for. Any vagueness in your entry lower your chances of winning.

Avoid boasting, do not exaggerate, and do not heap too much praise on your work. Try to be as objective as you can, while still presenting your accomplishments in a favorable light and communicating your creative idea.

If your entry involves a demonstration of actual physical products, design samples, etc., try to get these objects to the jury in advance. This will increase your chances of winning the award.

Keep in mind that a single work can fit the format and requirements for several nominations. If you can, submit it for all these nominations, or even to different competitions.

Why do this? It can significantly improve your chances of getting at least one win. Here’s an example: in the Integrated Campaign competition, one must submit works that cover at least two different communication channels, e.g., an OLV and a print ad. Which means you can already apply for three nominations: Integrated Campaign (along with the print ad) and both the Idea and Mastery of Execution nominations in the Video Ad competition.

Just make sure that your work satisfies all the requirement criteria for each nomination.

To submit a video, you must first upload it to a third-party online hosting service (YouTube or Vimeo), then, while entering the submission, add a link to it in the appropriate field. Note that jury members will watch the video in different countries. Try to use the most universally accessible hosting platform, or add several just to be sure.

When choosing, consider that the entry’s page on the festival website will use a video embed from the third-party hosting service. We ask you to upload your video in at least Full HD resolution or higher, and a wide 16:9 aspect ratio.

If submitting an image or a series of images, note that only .png, .jpg, .pdf, .gif, and .jpeg files will be accepted. The file size for each individial image must not exceed 64 MB. Image width should not exceed 1600 px side-to-side horizontally. IMPORTANT: images must have a landcape orientation!

The case study video in your submission must not include any logos or references to your agency. If this requirement is not met, your submission will be rejected. Note that the above only concerns the contents of your entry. When you fill out the entry submission, you should fill in your agency’s name and all individual credits.

Entrants must pay a fee to compete for Jolbors Awards Central Asia. But this payment does not carry any guarantees that your work will make the shortlist or win an award. Only fresh ideas and exquisite execution get you that!

The language of Jolbors is English. All submitted works (videos, descriptions, printed materials) must be produced in English.

In each work’s description, you must specify the date it was published and the name of the media outlet or platform where the activation took place.

1. A work or a series of works (i.e. developing a single concept with different messages) that have been submitted for a specific nomination are considered an entry. The jury judges, and the participant pays a fee for, each individual entry.
2. In case the entry does not make it into the longlist or the shortlist, the submission fee is not refunded to the participant.
3. Participation and payment of the participation fee do not carry a guarantee of winning any awards or getting a work into either the longlist or the shortlist.
4. The longlist is formed using the following criteria: the submission is valid (entered into correct competition and nomination), the creation and publication or launch dates fit the requirements, the work is not fictitious and is festival-grade (features unconventional elements or approaches).
5. Fictitious (fake) works are not accepted for competition. If a fictitious work is submitted, organizers or the jury reserve the right to disqualify the entry at any point with no refund of submission fee.
6. Entries that were shown to copy their idea from works by other agencies will be disqualified at the discretion of the jury.
7. The jury has the right to move an entry to a different nomination at any stage of the judging process. In the event that the work is submitted to more than one nomination, and does not fit one of these, it will be removed from competition in that specific nomination. If the entry is moved between nominations, their resulting number must match the number of entries submitted and paid for. E.g. if a participant paid for two submissions, their work cannot be moved to more than 2 new nominations.
8. Participation in the competition implies that the participant has read and agreed to the submission requirements and participation rules.

The Agency of the Year award at the Jolbors Festival is given to the agency that scores the most points at the end of the judging process.

Shortlist - 1 point
Bronze - 3 points
Silver - 5 points
Gold - 9 points
Grand Prix - 15 points

Both the award itself and the award points are received by the agency or business that submitted and paid for the entry. This means that if a work was jointly produced by 2 or more agencies or production houses, the award and points are only given to the agency or house that submitted the entry and paid the fee.