Entry Details & Eligibility
Celebrating the minds behind the magic!
Shine the spotlight on the brilliant strategists behind award-worthy campaigns.
Agencies that have submitted an entry to the 2026 Jay Chiat Awards are eligible to nominate an Emerging Strategist and Visionary Strategist.
The Emerging Strategist and Visionary Strategist awards recognize the innovative thinkers whose strategic vision is central to differentiation.
Know an exceptional strategist? Nominate them!
Deadline: Friday, July 17, 2026
Winners will be recognized on October 5 in NYC.
How It Works
Once you complete your JCA submission, you will be able to access the nomination forms. Self-nominations are encouraged! Case study entrants can submit ONE strategist nomination in each category (Emerging Strategist, Visionary Strategist) with each case study submission.
Nominations only open to those agencies that submit a case study in one of the 16 JCA award categories. Nominations close Friday, July 17, 2026.
Who can be nominated?
- The Emerging Strategist award is open to anyone currently employed at an agency who has 1-5 years of Strategy experience in the United States advertising / marketing industry.
- The Visionary Strategist award is open to anyone currently employed at an agency who has 15+ years of Strategy experience in the United States advertising / marketing industry.
- Feel free to nominate yourself!
Who can nominate?
- Anyone from an agency that has submitted to the 2026 Jay Chiat Awards. While anyone can nominate a strategist, that nominated strategist must work at a 4As member agency.
Fees – There is no additional cost to nominate as long as your agency has submitted an entry to the JCAs!
The Written Case Study
Your case study must include:
- A title
- Part One: Executive Summary (350-500 words, Approximately 1-2 Pages/Slides)
- Provide a concise and impactful executive summary with a word count between 350 and 500 words. This should specifically explain how the strategic insight uncovered went beyond the obvious, driving a meaningful marketing opportunity and/or creating an advantage for the brand.
- Focus on the key strategic insights and their direct impact.
- Papers that do not include this will be disqualified.
- Part Two: Compelling Narrative (1,500-3,000 words, Approximately 5-15 Pages/Slides)
- Craft a compelling case narrative with a word count between 1,500 and 3,000 words.
- The narrative, combined with the executive summary and visual materials, should not exceed 25 pages/slides.
- A clear understanding of the background, context and business challenge.
- A great “aha” moment: What was the human truth you identified? How did that lead to a clearly defined problem and a leverageable strategic insight? How did it incite, provoke, or challenge thinking that led to the creative execution?
- Demonstration of the effectiveness and impact of the ideas resulting from this strategy
- Part Three: Creative Supplementary Materials. Feel free to illustrate your case study with up to 5 creative examples and embedded videos. Remember, however, that we publish winning papers*, so don’t include visuals that you don’t hold rights on or could not obtain rights for (e.g., New Yorker cartoons or undocumented information on competitors.). We do not allow summary case study videos. Any submission containing this type of video will be disqualified.
* Regarding the publication of winning & shortlisted papers, our submission form asks you to confirm that your case study is either acceptable to publish, needs editing before publication, or cannot be published. We confirm this again after the judging process has concluded.
Content of Submission
Your submission should include:
- A written case study (in two parts, as outlined above)
- Creative supplementary materials (as outlined above):
- You can submit up to five pieces of supporting creative examples.
- For interactive, you can submit a linked or embedded image in the PDF file or you can submit a video separately as one of the creative supplementary materials. Always be sure to check that the link in the case study works.
- Files cannot be larger than 200MB.
- Creative elements beyond marketing communications should be included if applicable. For example, visuals featuring architecture, in-store design, uniform design, etc. that were part of the overall execution. These elements can be included in the written paper or as separate files.
Important Considerations
- The Jay Chiat Awards share some elements with other major industry awards, but it’s critically important that you focus this submission on the clarity of the strategic idea, and that it is not eclipsed by the creative work. We want to be able to see clearly what you did and how it made a difference in getting to the outcome.
- Let’s not forget insight, often the essential ingredient of great strategies. Your case study should highlight the insight. Tell us how you uncovered it & what you did with it.
- Planners and Strategists face multiple challenges in their work and getting to greatness is often a complicated journey. Your paper should document your internal and external challenges and tell us how you managed to overcome them.
- We recognize that Account Planning and Strategy now encompass a diverse range of skills; from insight development to accessing new tools to the briefing process. We continually diversify the JCA categories in an effort to acknowledge this.
- In most agencies, Planning is often a team sport. In your case study, we want to understand how Account Planners/Strategists led their multi-disciplinary teams and what the contributions of the team members were.
- The overall Grand Prix winner will be selected from the main category Gold award winners.
Do Not
- Names of the agency or agency individuals cannot appear in the written case study or at any time on-screen in your creative examples. You can include client/brand names--and should! Please check the naming convention of your files, too. — they cannot include your agency name. All submissions that include the agency name will be disqualified. Also be mindful that the file name doesn't include the name of any other competition. The Jay Chiat Awards are unique and require thought.
- Any papers exceeding the proper word or page/slide count will be eliminated in the first round.
