Golden Drum Award

The Golden Drum Award is bestowed annually at the International Festival of Creativity Golden Drum for the winning entry in each of the selected categories, arranged in groups that are modified through festival editions to reflect the changes of principles, practices and media used in the world of advertising.

Golden Drum Competition

Golden Drum Competition is shared between 2 sections: What and Why.

The What Section

The key question that the jury is asking is what is outstanding about the communication solution in the chosen form and what is the added value of its execution. The What section primarily focuses on individual works that are moving frontiers in the traditional groups: Film, Print, Out of Home, Audio, Digital & Mobile, Design, Innovation and Craft.

The Why Section

The key question that the jury is asking is why does the work exist? Is there a unique reason for product or service invention or introduction, a really brilliant insight, relevant meaning or purpose, the most important driver which helped creative teams to think of a brilliant piece of communication?

The jury observes the communication as a whole from this perspective, so even a beautifully crafted communication without a concise answer to Why? does not count. The section questions the end goal of any intervention in the communication landscape by dividing entries into the groups listed below.

Group R: Integrated

The Integrated communication campaign stretches across several media, at least 3 communication and distribution channels, with the channels being offline or online, mass or direct. Group R is intended for the registration of the most complex and comprehensive communication campaigns with the broadest range of means and venues of reaching the audience.

Group S: Activation

The Activation group includes campaigns with two or more communication channels or media, which can be both offline or online. This group is intended for campaigns that directly address and/or activate the audience (consumers or other businesses).

Group T: Brand Building

This group is intended for best practices in managing referential and influential brands – from brands introduction and continuous building to its repositioning. The category Brand Vitality is intended for brands communicating over a certain period (more than 2 years), able to document its consistency.

Group U: Functional Efficiency

The Functional Efficiency group is searching for the most relevant ideas that connect business strategy with creative strategy and content, ideas that empower business, brand and consumer simultaneously.

Group V: Content

This group includes campaigns or communication impulses that integrate naturally into existing original content for the purpose of promoting products, services or brands. The impact on the audience is built by creating content that is primarily entertaining, informative or educational, not strictly appearing as advertising or promotion.

Group X: Engagement

This group includes different ways of reaching target audiences and the creative implementation of ideas through the use of media and data, direct solutions, public and community relations.

Group Y: Genius Loci / Local Spirit

In this group, entries are judged on the basis of understanding the distinctive local spirit of the home country and showcasing (highlighting) it in the creative strategy and execution.

Group Z: Social Good

This group comprises of individual executions (such as film, radio, press, OOH, digital, mobile, direct) as well as events, social activations and integrated campaigns that deal with social, mental and environmental awareness, traffic safety, diversity and equality, anti-addictions, sustainable development, humanitarian, charity and other public and non-profit or profit communication. The entries are judged on the basis of the social relevance of their message and its creative brilliance.

For the 2020 edition of the festival, the Local spirit group was renamed into Genius Loci/Local spirit and elevated to a new and highly appreciated award in the region. The award emphasises and celebrates distinctive cultures.

The competition of the festival strives for clarity and relevance in general; therefore, it introduced new groups and renamed some of the existing ones for the 2020 competition.

Golden Drum Awards

All registered entries are reviewed and judged by one of two international juries, comprised especially for the What and the Why section.

By entering the Golden Drum Competition, the participants compete for the following awards:

Shortlist
Silver Drum
Golden Drum
Grand Prix
The Best of Good
The Best of Genius Loci
The Best of What (chosen among Grand Prix winners in Section What)
The Best of Why (chosen among Grand Prix, The Best of Good and The Best of Genius Loci winners in Section Why)
The Golden Rose for the agency that collects the most points.
The Golden Net for the most successful advertising network on the basis of the points of all agencies that comprise the network in question.
The Golden Dragon Award for the most successful independent advertising agency that collects the most points.
The Brand Grand Prix for the advertised brand that collects the most points.
The Golden Watch awarded to the Creative Director of the Campaign of the Year that collects the most points for the campaign and the individual entries of the same campaign in all categories.
Special Golden Drum Adriatic award shall be presented on the basis of the festival's points system for the most successful entries from the following Adriatic Region countries: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Slovenia. Based on the collected points from both the What section and the Why section.