How the Jersey Ad Club Transformed Their Awards Program
Category
Awards
Industry
Advertising
How the New Jersey Advertising Club digitized 113+ award categories and 4X'd their program efficiency.
Overview
The Jersey Awards celebrate excellence in the creative and communications industries across New Jersey. The program recognizes outstanding work across more than 100 categories and culminates in a formal ceremony attended by leaders in marketing, media, and design.
Program impact
Reduced administrative workload and manual coordination across 113+ categories.
Process change
Enabled seamless digital submissions and reviews for over 350 applications.
Scalable growth
Through workflow automation, chieved nearly 4x the industry benchmark for program efficiency.
Introduction
The Jersey Awards celebrate excellence in the creative and communications industries across New Jersey. The program recognizes outstanding work across more than 100 categories and culminates in a formal ceremony attended by leaders in marketing, media, and design.
Challenges
Inefficient Program Management
The reliance on SharePoint and Excel created barriers to effective communication, tracking, and oversight, limiting the program’s overall efficiency.
Resistance to Change
Long-tenured employees, particularly older participants, were hesitant to embrace a new digital system.
Hierarchical Structures
Organizational hierarchy slowed decision-making, requiring strong leadership buy-in to move forward.
Limited Scheduling Tools
A lack of Outlook integration created inefficiencies in planning mentorship meetings.
Limited Engagement
Busy schedules made it essential for the solution to be user-friendly and time-efficient..
Participant Uncertainty
Both mentors and mentees struggled to see how the program would benefit them, reducing initial participation rates.
Solution
Simple Sign-Up Process
Employees accessed RQ Mentorship effortlessly using Single Sign-On, streamlining the sign-in process and improving user experience.
Customizable Matching
Mentees were empowered to choose mentors that aligned with their career goals.
Goal and Task Tracking
Participants were able to set their objectives and track progress directly within RQ Mentorship, enhancing accountability and motivation.
Engagement Insights
Admins gained comprehensive visibility into mentorship progress, engagement metrics, and resource sharing, facilitating better program management.
Outlook Integration
Meetings were seamlessly scheduled within participants’ calendars, reducing scheduling challenges and enhancing program efficiency.
Results
What once took weeks of manual coordination is now completed in hours, allowing the Jersey Awards team to focus on celebrating creativity instead of managing logistics.
Administrative workload reduced — Less manual coordination across 113+ categories.
Streamlined digital submissions and reviews — Seamless submissions and reviews for more than 350 applications.
Secure integrated payments — Improved payment security and reporting through Stripe.
Scalable growth without compromising prestige — A consistent, branded applicant and reviewer experience at scale.
Ready to Simplify Your Programs?
See how RQ Platform and RQ Mentorship can help your organization streamline applications, reviews, program administration, mentorship, and participant engagement.