The Filipino PR leader, who has judged The International Business Awards and chairs a jury in the 2026 Asia-Pacific Stevie Awards, urges entrants to lead with evidence, context, and honesty.
Award entries that call their work “innovative,” “transformative,” or “game-changing” are no longer enough to impress the judges, according to Vonj Tingson, President and Chief Operating Officer of PAGEONE Group.
Tingson is one of two Filipino judges in the PR and Corporate Communications category of The International Business Awards (IBAs), known as the “International Stevies.” He also chairs the Corporate Communications/PR & Media judging committee in the 2026 Asia-Pacific Stevie Awards. Drawing on that experience, he shared what separates award-winning entries from the rest.
Evidence Over Adjectives
“I’m looking for evidence,” Tingson said. “After judging enough entries, you see that nearly every submission describes its work as innovative, transformative, or game-changing. Those words have lost their force through overuse. What I want is the proof behind the adjective.”
Coming from the communications and reputation side of business, Tingson pays close attention to the link between strategy and outcome. “A strong entry draws a clear, credible line from the challenge to the approach to the result,” he said. “A 40 percent increase means very little unless I understand what it was measured against and why it was significant for that business, in that market, at that moment.”
Context Matters In A Global Competition
The IBAs draw entries from many countries, industries, and company sizes; the 2026 edition received more than 3,800 nominations from organizations in 78 nations and territories. Tingson noted that this diversity makes context essential.
“A result that looks modest in one market can be extraordinary in another, given the constraints involved,” he said. “Don’t assume the judge knows your market as well as you do. Tell us what made it hard.”
He added that integrity in the telling is just as important. “Ambition is welcome, but accountability is what earns the score. The best entries don’t oversell. They are confident because the work speaks for itself.”
What Makes An Entry Stand Out
For Tingson, a winning entry starts with sound thinking. He noted that a judge can often sense early on whether the team behind a submission truly grasps what made their work effective, and that this understanding tends to show from the opening lines.
He also places a premium on honesty about the bumps along the way. In his view, the entries that resonate most are those willing to reveal their missteps, whether a change in direction, a premise that turned out to be wrong, or a point where the project came close to collapsing. Far from hurting a submission, he believes such openness makes it stronger. “It shows a team that learns and adapts rather than one that got lucky,” Tingson said.
What stays with him long after judging, he added, is evidence that the work made a difference outside the company’s own walls, whether for customers, employees, communities, or the wider industry. For Tingson, this broader impact is frequently the dividing line between a solid campaign and one that earns top honors.
Finally, he pointed to the importance of execution. While polish can never stand in for a strong idea, he said, it plays a decisive role in whether that idea catches the jury’s attention.
Common Mistakes To Avoid
Tingson identified several mistakes he sees repeatedly:
- Confusing activity with results. “Reach, impressions, number of posts, number of press releases, number of events held are outputs. They show effort, and effort is not what we are scoring. Tell me what moved [you] because of it.”
- Writing for yourself instead of the judge. Internal acronyms, codenames, and references cost an entry momentum. “Write as if you’re explaining your achievement to an intelligent outsider, because that is exactly who is reading it.”
- Burying the lead. “Lead with your best evidence. Structure the entry so the most important information is right up front.”
- Submitting one generic narrative across categories. “Each category has its own criteria, and an entry that speaks directly to those criteria will almost always beat a generic one.”
- Making unsupported claims. “If you make the claim, back it with a source, a benchmark, or a third-party validation. Otherwise, let the facts make the case for you.”
- Waiting until the last minute. “Rushed entries read as rushed,” he said. The best submissions are drafted, challenged, and revised by people willing to ask whether the entry “would convince a skeptical reader who has never heard of us.”
His advice to entrants: “Treat your entry as a piece of strategic communication in its own right, because that is exactly what it is. The same discipline that makes your work succeed in the market should show in how you present it to the judges.”
In the end, Tingson’s message to those vying for a Stevie at the International Business Awards comes down to a simple idea: a strong submission is earned well before it reaches the jury. Organizations that reflect honestly on their work, measure what truly changed, and tell that story with clarity and purpose give judges every reason to take notice in a field crowded with impressive achievements from around the world. For entrants hoping to stand out on that global stage, the challenge is not only to have done remarkable work, but to present it with the same rigor, focus, and conviction that made it succeed in the first place.
