Awards programs typically lack the technical knowledge and buyer perspective to understand who the leading products are, and rely on name-recognition and funding announcements as proxies for market share instead.

The rare awards programs that do have specific knowledge of a particular space exhibit both implicit and explicit bias, over-representing major incumbents and hyped startups in their selections based on preconceived ideas.

Vendors themselves know their own space the best and ask incredibly insightful and precise questions that shine light on where competitive differentiation is found.

Existing awards programs fall short in providing tangible and actionable marketing value to the participating vendors, relying instead on the announcement of recognition as the sole upside for participants.

Those existing awards programs don’t effectively convey which vendors are truly distancing themselves with innovation, because they fail to properly protect exclusivity and tend to embrace participation trophies rather than merit-based competition.

Vendors are best-served by competing head-to-head with rivals in an arena that rewards transparent debate and provides tangible value for marketing teams.

By the same token, buyers benefit most from transparent debate between vendors and gain new insight from viewing those unique interactions as part of their research.

Most vendors pursue multiple awards programs each year, but none fill these particular needs.