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PRIA awards head: PR agencies must learn the ‘art’ of awards entry writing

Allison Lee

Lee

The chair of the Public Relations Institute of Australia’s Golden Target Awards has warned that many good public relations campaigns are not being properly recognised due to a poor effort in the writing of awards entries.

Speaking to Mumbrella, as part of the call for entries for the 2014 awards Allison Lee said the industry needed to make sure their entry fully communicated the work of the PR campaign.

“I’ve been judging these awards for a long time and what you often see is a really great campaign but it is really poor entered,” said Lee, who is also managing director of Impact Communications.  “Often you know its a good campaign but the judges can only go with what’s on the entry. It’s heartbreaking when you know it should do better but it has been let down by the entry.

“There is an art to writing the entry. Those companies that think through their submission and work out how to tell a great story will do better.”

Lee signalled that the judging standard had been raised in recent years and good entries would demonstrate both professional excellence and innovation.

“What we are really looking for is excellence – that means not just a good campaign that got some results but a bloody brilliant campaign,” she said.

“We are really looking for evidence of innovation. The world we are in is more digital, we are doing things in more exciting and innovative ways and we want to see how PR companies are rising to that challenge.”

Lee is chairing the committee for this year’s awards which also includes  The Red Agency managing director James Wright, Claire Salvetti, managing director of Mango Sydney and Professor Gwyneth Howell.

The Golden Target awards have been run since 1975 and recognise and reward excellence in public relations and communications. The 17 Awards this year include 11 for specific practice areas, and ‘best-of-the-best’ categories including Young PR Professional, PR Consultancy, and In-House PR Professional/Team.

PRIA National President Mike Watson said in a statement, “The Golden Target Awards attracted nearly 200 outstanding entries last year that help lift the bar in PR and communications practice. We expect that to grow in 2014.”

Early Bird nominations close 11 August with later entries accepted until 18 August. An entry kit is available on their website.  PRIA is also offering a free webinar on Monday on how to write an awards entry.

 

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