Public Relations Awards

We've just published a new tipsheet called 10 Tips for Winning PR Awards in the 2011 Stevie Awards.  Get it here.

It summarizes the 10 best ways that public relations and communications professionals can be recognized in the four Stevie Awards competitions in 2011 (which include The American Business Awards, the International Business Awards, the Stevie Awards for Women in Business, and the Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service).  For the most part it recommends the public relations awards, web awards, and other categories that PR folks should focus on, and outlines the general submission requirements for those categories.

Coca-Cola HBC Romania, Bucharest, Romania was presented with the Stevie Award for Public Affairs Communications or PR Campaign of the Year, in the PR awards categories at The 2010 International Business Awards banquet in Istanbul on September 27.

When Romania became a member of the European Community in 2007, EU legislation required that Romania increase its waste recovery to 60% by 2013.

The main challenges for the country to reach this target were the lack of an integrated waste-management system with appropriate legislation—and the need to educate the population on separate collection.

Coca-Cola HBC Romania, part of the Coca-Cola Hellenic Group, took a leading role in Romania’s efforts to build an integrated system to recover packaging and to provide an awareness campaign for the general population. Separate collection and recycling represent the main sustainability directions of the company.

Objectives
Coca-Cola HBC Romania’s Community Programs team, led by Laura Sgarcitu, an experienced Public Affairs & Communications Specialist, had three objectives: to promote a legislative framework to support a waste management system; to make a significant contribution to attaining the national target set by the EU; and to promote the importance of separate collection and recycling at a national level.

A 2008 study carried out by the Institute of Marketing and Surveys in Romania (IMAS) had revealed that only half the Romanian population collected separately. In 2009, the Community Programs team at Coca-Cola HBC developed a platform on separate collection, the two major components of which were a lobbying program aimed at outlining a legislative framework for separate collection in Romania, and an educational campaign targeting the public.

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Now that we're coming to the end of 2010 and we look back over the Stevie Award winners for the year, it's apparent that Weber Shandwick truly is the agency of the year for its haul of pr awards.

The agency won the Stevie for Public Relations Agency of the Year in The 8th annual American Business Awards back in June in New York.  You can read the full-text of their Stevie-winning nomination on the ABA web site.

Weber Shandwick Europe then won the International Stevie for Public Relations Agency of the Year in Europe in The 7th annual International Business Awards, which were presented in Istanbul, Turkey on September 27.  That award was accepted by Rose de la Pascua, Chair of Weber Shandwick Spain and Executive Vice President for Continental Europe.  Read the full-text of Weber Shandwick Europe's Stevie-winning entry on the IBA web site.

Members of the Weber Shandwick network around the world also won honors in Stevie Awards's public relations awards categories in 2010, including among others AC Sanafor in Finland, McCann PR in Romania, Corporate Weber Shandwick in India, and Weber Shandwick in Dallas, Texas among others.

In addition, the agency won a raft of other awards in 2010.

So who'll be the Stevies' agency of the year in 2011?

In 2010 we introduced a lot of new public relations and communications awards categories in The American Business Awards, and we haven't added any new ones for 2011.  But I thought I'd take a moment here to outline the categories that I think are the best fit for public relations, corporate communications, public affairs, and investor relations professionals, because not all of them are plainly labelled.

First off, there are those categories that are plainly labelled, and they include the many Communications or PR Campaign/Program of the Year categories we introduced in 2010.  Here are the main communications categories (the letter/nomination combinations are our internal category codes):

C01. Public Relations Agency of the Year

C02. Communications Department of the Year

C03. Communications Team of the Year

C04. Investor Relations Campaign/Program of the Year

C05. Communications or PR Campaign/Program of the Year
         a. Community Relations: campaigns/programs that aim to improve relations with communities in which the sponsoring organization has an interest, need or opportunity.
         b. Crisis Communications: campaigns/programs undertaken to deal with an unplanned event and requiring immediate response.
         c. Global Issues: campaigns/programs that demonstrate effective global communications implemented in at least two countries, one of which must be the United States.
         d. Issues Management: campaigns/programs undertaken to deal with issues that could extraordinarily affect ongoing business strategy.
         e. Low Budget (under $10,000): campaigns/programs that cost no more than $10,000 to plan and implement.
         f. Marketing – Business to Business: campaigns/programs designed to introduce new products or promote existing products or services to a business audience.
         g. Marketing – Consumer Products: campaigns/programs designed to introduce new products or promote existing products to a consumer audience.
         h. Marketing – Consumer Services: campaigns/programs designed to introduce new services or promote existing services to a consumer audience.
         i. Multicultural: campaigns/programs specifically targeted to a cultural group.
         j. Reputation/Brand Management: campaigns/programs designed to enhance, promote or improve the reputation of an organization with its publics or key elements of its publics.
         k. Public Affairs: campaigns/programs specifically designed to influence public policy and/or affect legislation, regulations, political activities or candidacies.
         l. Public Service: campaigns/programs that advance public understanding of societal issues, problems or concerns.
         m. Social Media Focused: campaigns/programs designed to be implemented primarily through online social media.       

C06. Communications, Investor Relations, or PR Executive of the Year

C07. Communications Professional of the Year (for non-executive communications, PR, and IR professionals).  This category has no entry fee.

These categories all require pretty much the same information:
a. An essay or case of up to 500 words about the achievements of the nominee since January 1 2010.  Depending on the category the nominee can be an entire department, a team, an individual, or the performance of a campaign or program.
b. A set of links to online work samples, news articles, press releases, videos, images, etc. that support the nomination.  This is optional but highly recommended.  You can provide as many links as you'd like, but up to 20 is optimal.
c. A brief biography of up to 100 words about the nominee or the leader of the nominated department, team, or campaign/program initiative.

As always we welcome your comments and questions about these categories and how to enter.

There are a number of other ABA categories that should be of interest to communications professionals, including many of the corporate literature and annual report awards categories, web site and blog awards categories, video awards categories, and live event awards categories.  I recommend that you take a look at these as well.