Ethical guidelines for the Vuoden Huiput juries

The Vuoden Huiput Competition's aim is to award the best of Finnish advertising and graphic design. The competition entries must be assessed based on carefully considered principles and ethically reputable methods as well as professionally high-quality criteria.

The realisation of the competition’s objectives, principles and rules is above all dependent on the jury members' personal responsibility and conscience. The jury’s position is inviolable, and the competition organiser or some other external party has no right to change the jury's decisions. Therefore, the juries must exercise uncompromised ethics in their work.

These ethical guidelines have been drawn to facilitate jury work and to maintain the high standard and reputation of the Vuoden Huiput Competition.

 

To a Vuoden Huiput jury member

You have been chosen as a Vuoden Huiput jury member. In accordance with the competition principles, the jury members must be designers and creators highly regarded by their colleagues. You are one of those. It is an honour but also a responsibility.

The majority of the Vuoden Huiput Competition jury members work for an advertising agency as their main occupation and, thus, are paid to promote the interests of the agency and its clients and employees.

However, as a jury member of the Vuoden Huiput Competition, you represent only yourself, your expertise and your honest opinion. Not your agency, your colleagues or your clients. Your decisions and those of the other jury members must not be driven by personal or a colleague’s advantage or disadvantage or that of your or someone else’s agency – the decision must be based only on the jury members’ expertise, opinion and complete independence. 

The Vuoden Huiput Competition results are public. Organisations in the industry and the press are welcome to come and witness the jury work. The purpose of the competition is to bring together Finnish designers to discuss the industry’s outlooks and to evaluate the competition entries.

The evaluation is always subjective and some other jury may have chosen to give the award to another entry. Thus, the jury’s decisions may and should be assessed and criticised, sometimes publicly. If the jury has unconditionally followed the rules and principles of the competition and maintained high ethics, it is easy to respond to the criticism. However, if that is not the case, it is impossible.

Please familiarize yourself with the competition rules as well as the competition's goals and principals in advance.

Some tried and tested advice

Competition between entries

  • In the eyes of the jury, a competition entry competes against other competition entries.
  • The competition is not between agencies or designers, although they are the ones being awarded.
  • So you must not let the creator affect your decision, even if the agency or designer is known to you.
  • Your decision must also not be affected by the fact that you may know of a better work that has, for one reason or another, not been submitted to the competition.

Be completely honest

  • Always vote for the work that you deem best. Irrespective of who it is by. Your best friend, your worst enemy, your biggest rival.

Avoid using tactics

  • Do not assess one entry poorly to improve the rating of another.
  • Do not assess a poor entry highly to put down an entry that you do not like. 

Do not settle or agree to do trade-offs

  • That might mean that a work that does not deserve to win gets an award.

Be fair when you are subject to a conflict of interest

  • Do not say a word about your own or your agency's work. Especially avoid saying:“There may be a conflict of interest here, but…” or “I do not want to influence the decision, but…"
  • If the vote is a significant one, the person who is subject to a conflict of interest must leave the room until the jury has made its decision.
  • When there is a conflict of interest, you must not give someone else's work worse assessment than it deserves any more than a better one for your own.
  • Even if you feel your work has been wrongly judged, do not allow that to affect your voting behaviour in relation to the works of the other judges; they too follow these guidelines. 

Do not obey another jury member.

  • Every jury has more and less vocal members.
  • Everyone should be listened to, but no one needs to be obeyed. Your own view is the decisive one.

Respect the other jury members

  • Each jury member has been selected to represent their expertise and vision: make sure you respect that and do not try and influence them.
  • Do not act disrespectfully or discriminatorily towards the other jury members or belittle them due to their gender, age, ethnicity, religion or other similar matter.

Promoting personal interests is not worth it

  • Finland is a small country and the industry is even smaller. Your reputation precedes you. And you may be working for another employer sooner or later.