About the Caples Group

Awards

The year-long effort by over 300 international volunteers culminates in the Caples Night Party, a glittering cocktails and dinner celebration highlighted by
a spectacular, multi-media presentation of winning entries. Attendees receive a Presentation Book with photos of winning entries, agency, client and team member names, and lists of Finalists. Winners also receive trophies.

Special Awards

4 additional Awards are also presented: the Courageous Client, for innovative advertising an insecure client would never authorize; the Sackheim Best of Show, for an outstandingly ingenious entry; the Irving Wunderman, to a creative for a minimum of 10 years of exceptional direct response work; and the Andi Emerson, to an industry leader for a lifetime of service to the Direct Marketing community at large.

Judging Process

To become a Finalist, each individual entry must be vetted by a triumvirate of creative peers during 2 successively-eliminative judging Rounds. For the Final Round, the Finalists are numerically scored for copy, for art and for concept,
by 2 separate triumvirates of International Judges. The cumulative total of the
6 individual Creative Directors is decisive. If no Finalist reaches the preset score for a prize level, no prize is awarded. If two or more reach the same prize-level score in the same category, there will be multiple winners. Thus, a category may have several Silver (2nd), prize winners, say, without a Gold (1st), etc. etc.

The Publicity

To be chosen as a winner means the problem-solving strategy and execution was judged "excellent" and the creative "superb". However, since non-winning finalist entries may have scored only a point or two below actual winners, they are announced with the winners on dmnews.com and caples.org and they are listed in the Caples' Book of Winners.