5 Simple ways to improve your virtual awards ceremony

Ever since the pandemic, we all have been exercising our creative minds to come up with solutions. Events are no exception. Everyone is working on virtual conferences and seminars, but what about virtual award ceremonies? How do you capture the excitement of winning and make sure that the accomplishments of your team are properly recognized?

We’re not having everyone sit down to a delicious dinner, and the cocktails now have to be made by you but there are still ways to make an event fun and memorable. This shouldn't be something that gets passed over in the age of COVID. Remember that recognition is still important. One study finds that 73% of employees say that recognition will motivate their work ethic and productivity.

Even before we moved to a virtual world, we’d seen and heard it all when it came to award ceremonies. So we’re going to share some tips to help elevate your event and how Clearmount can work with you to create handcrafted, custom and personalized awards to acknowledge your winners.

Keep it quick

Sitting for 2 hours in front of a computer can get boring pretty quick, so adjust your ceremony to this new reality and find ways to shorten your ceremony without compromising its objective. You can ensure that all achievements are highlighted by pre-recording acceptance speeches. We can ship the awards ahead of time to be showcased in the video and give the recipient a physical point of pride in this virtual award. And the bonus, you can schedule the zoom after-party and not worry about losing or breaking the award during post-ceremony celebrations. (Oh we have stories!)

Make it a big announcement

Since the pandemic, only 1 in 5 Americans say that their company has implemented a new process to recognize their workforce. The survey revealed that one of the top ways was receiving “verbal expressions of appreciation”. Take some time during your team meetings to highlight achievements. Follow up with internal or external email blasts and social media mentions. Want to make it extra special? Have us ship the award early with a label saying the time and date that the box is to be opened. We can include personalized notes to make it feel extra special.

Celebrate in person

If possible, and your team members are ok with it, choose to drop the awards off in person. Socially distanced just means physically distanced so as long as you’re masked and 6 ft apart, why not give your congratulations in person. Don’t forget to bring the champagne!

Think about how it looks. No really- think about how it looks!

Before the pandemic, retail and experiential designers were thinking how things look photographed on your phone and how things get shared on social media. It’s the only time now that being viral is a good thing. So think about how your project will look being shared. Go beyond the functionality aspect of an award and create a conversation piece that the recipient would be not only proud to display in their office or home but a unique art piece that they want to share online. If you're not sure where to start, let our creative team figure out how to wow on social media and remove this item from your to-do list.

Just in time for the show

One of the advantages of working with Clearmount is how quickly we can turn around a product and ship it to you. If you don’t know your winners until the date, don’t worry. We can produce the pieces in advance, and we’ll send you one to be the display piece of your virtual ceremony and hold the others to be engraved on the fly and shipped to the recipients. The fastest we’ve ever done this? An award for TIFF (Toronto International Film Festival) was decided in the morning and we had it personalized and in the hands of the winner by the afternoon!