Awards, holds & availability · Working

Soft award

Also called: provisional award

ELI5

An informal indication that a bidder is preferred before all approvals or commercial conditions are final.

“Let’s confirm the soft award before the director starts the next treatment draft.”

You may hear this during a commercial brief, treatment, bid, award or pre-production process.

Why it matters: Helps interpret the brief, director treatment, bid, award, production process and campaign deliverables.

This usage is established in practice but is not fully standardised. A domain specialist should review it before release as canon.

Hard awardA hard award is a firm production commitment; a soft award signals preference but may remain conditional.

Sources & evidence · 6

Direct term-level sources and supporting source families.