Overall Eligibility

Firms must have annual billings under $40 million to qualify for the Summit Creative Award. Some organizations are restricted to a lower maximum billing amount. If a company does not clearly fall into one of the categories below, please e-mail sia@summitawards.com, call 503-297-9979 x 1, or use the chat app to speak with our team to determine its eligibility.

Submission Eligibility

• Entries from all countries are eligible for submission.
• Entries must be produced within the last two calendar years up through the final deadline.
• Entries may not have been previously entered in the SCA competition unless 51% of the work has been revised.
• All entries must be submitted for judging exactly as published, aired, or implemented and may not be modified for awards. The Summit Awards may request proof of initial production, publication, and/or air date.
• A written translation or adaptation must accompany non-English entries.
• Avoid uploading presentation decks. Keep the creative as the hero and only provide a deck if necessary for the board of judges to understand the execution thoroughly.
• The Summit Awards reserves the right to re-categorize incorrectly classified entries.
• Some entries may qualify for multiple categories; treat each entry as a separate submission.
• Judges reserve the right to withhold an award in a category if submissions do not meet their expectations.
• The Summit Awards reserves the right to determine eligibility.
• We respect and acknowledge the intellectual copyright of the entering firms' creative work and will fully protect those rights.

Entry Definitions

• Single Entry is one piece of creative execution, ie. commercial, website, outdoor, direct mail, logo, poster, etc.
• Single-medium Campaign Entries consist of at least two separate executions in one medium.
• Integrated/Mixed Media Campaign Entries consist of at least one execution in two or more media.

Campaigns must have been developed with a common theme. Multi-item submissions entered as single entries are either separated and considered single entries or reclassified as a campaign. You will be contacted if additional fees apply.

Student entrants must be full- or part-time students. Work may be created for the SCA or submitted from prior school projects or competitions. Work developed for paying clients must be entered in other categories using standard entry fees.

Accepted files

Images: jpeg, jpg, gif, png
Documents: pdf, doc
Audio: mp3, wma, wav, m4a, m4p
Video: flv, mp4, mkv, mpg, mpeg, mov, avi, wmv

Unaccepted files and presentation

• Do not submit files that require judges to install or locally download, such as exe, psd, or zip.
• If an entry needs registration and account, preregister using sia @summitawards.com, UN: summitjudge, PW: 1994Evaluation!!
• Don't link to Dropbox, Google Drive, or another cloud repository where judges must navigate files to find what they need. Email us with questions or to suggest workarounds.

Entry Preparation

• Creativity is the hero. Do not provide an extensive write-up or deck. If a write-up is required to understand the project, keep it short and concise.
• Provide the number of creative samples needed for the jury to evaluate the entry without being redundant.
• To comply with the Summit Awards’ blind-judging policy, remove the entering company’s name/logo from each submission unless you are from the marketing department of the end advertiser/marketer. Summit Awards reserves the right to disqualify any entry if the submitter reveals their company name on their entries.

Size:  Keep uploads under 100MB

Video/Audio

• Upload a screenshot (for a visual thumbnail) and
• Upload Video/Commercial/Audio files or host on an outside server (YouTube, Vimeo, etc.)
• Do not provide links to Cloud accounts, including Google Drive or Dropbox files.

Print-oriented Items

• One-sided creative (ads, logos, posters, etc.) upload jpg or pdf.
• Two-sided or multi-page creative samples, send multiple jpgs or combine them into one multi-page pdf.
  (Provide all pages of the item vs a photo taken to display it. Juries need the option to read and not just view it as a presentation.)

Websites, Interactive, Online, PR, or Online Application preparation 

• Upload screenshot of homepage/open screen (for thumbnail) and
• Input URL in the provided field or upload the presentation.
  (For Apps/Interactive - Do not require judges to download or launch. Alternatively, provide a short video, screen capture, or other visual presentation (video, pdf, ppt), to demonstrate app/interactive. Provide any needed UN and passwords.