After several years of trying, TVNET won a prestigious Bristol Life award with a submission prepared by On Point Copywriting.
The challenge
TVNET are a wonderful Bristol company, specialising in data cabling installation and related services. From schools to museums and businesses, they work with many regional organisations and also have a national presence.
A problem, perhaps, when it comes to awards is that they are very much a behind-the-scenes company. They are excellent at what they do, best in class, but others often take the limelight.
In the past, they had asked us to edit award submissions which they had initially prepared in-house. This can offer cost savings, but sometimes as creatives it is better to be left with a blank canvas.
The solution
This time Andy Nash, a director, asked us to take the whole entry on, and provided us with a briefing.
“I had intended to write our submission and have you check it, in the end I just sent you some notes and bullet points in the hope you could answer all the questions. You did, which was a huge time saver for me and although the way it was written wasn’t how I would have done it, I decided not to make any changes, as I figured you are better placed in this area.”
We had a couple of weeks lead-in time to the award entry deadline so were able to complete our draft and send it back in good time for TVNET to review.
When we had edited submissions in previous years, they had always had good milestones around turnover growth, hiring and other metrics. This year was more of a year of consolidation (in difficult market conditions) and we framed the entry as such.
We were, however, also able to trumpet the company’s B-Corp accreditation that they had earned in the past 12 months which stood them out from the crowd in their industry. Taking the raw facts and turning them into a narrative is such an important part of writing an award entry in our opinion.
As well as the narrative approach, the messaging and tone of the writing would have contributed, we’d like to think.
To quote an extract:
“As a technology company we are not a sexy SaaS developer or a funky fintech. Rather we’re a wonderful workhorse that lays the groundwork (or should we say data cables) for other companies to benefit from technology.” Analysing this, there is some nice alliteration, humour, charm. It is humble but extoling that although they are not in the limelight, they are no less worthy of recognition. Obviously, without a good story (backed up by facts) they could not win. But we think this approach framed their application well and did a lot of heavy lifting within the submission.
The result
We should have given a spoiler alert at the start, because we have already told you that the entry won. The judges described TVNET as:
“Really impressive, resilient long-term business operating smartly in a tricky year to provide much of Bristol’s technological infrastructure.”
We are not sure how many businesses entered the Business Services Award this year, but we believe the year before it was 60, making it one of, if not the most, competitive fields at the Bristol Life Awards. As Andy explains:
“I was happy when we were shortlisted and figured that was the end of it. We actually went on to win which was a huge moment for us and a lot of the credit has to go to the way the submission questions were answered.
“I would have no hesitation in recommending On Point Copywriting, and will certainly use them again for any award submissions and any other written marketing content.”
But what does winning actually mean? Well, TVNET can now describe themselves as award-winning in their marketing literature, they have had a host of positive publicity and have a winners’ logo too. I also saw the trophy and it is an elegant, weighty thing that can take pride of place in their office.