Part five of our March 12 Ryerson DMZ tour (and our final!) features Jalil Asaria, senior account executive at Viafoura – a tool used by CNN, CBC and the Discovery Channel.
Viafoura is an audience engagement platform for media properties.
By: Miranda Germani
The ACE Awards, held on April 24 at Arcadian Court, truly lived up to its namesake of Achieving Communications Excellence. Fantastic examples of excellence were celebrated throughout the evening, with top campaign honours going to two particularly outstanding campaigns.
Winner of Best PR Campaign of the Year was Argyle Communications and Free for All for their “30% off Ontario Tuition” campaign.
“Receiving this honour from CPRS Toronto not only makes Argyle Communications and its clients feel proud, but also tells us that our professional peers believe we set and achieve high standards,” said Argyle Communications president Daniel Tisch.
“PR is at its best when practised in the public interest,” said Daniel, speaking to the importance of Argyle’s campaign. “The Ontario government had made its ‘30 per cent off tuition’ a priority, and needed support to get the message to students. PR was critical in getting this done. Like every great PR campaign, there were barriers to overcome, and a creative strategy was critical to success.”
The other star campaign of the evening was Strategic Objectives and Mondelēz Canada’s “100th Birthday of Oreo” campaign, which took home the award for Best Creative PR Campaign of the Year. Judy Lewis, Strategic Objectives co-founder and executive vice president, enthusiastically affirmed that winning the award gives her team the inspiration to continue to develop the most creative, breakthrough, and effective PR campaigns.
These two campaigns particularly epitomized achieving communications excellence for 2013. Who will win next year? The countdown begins now, so be sure to get ready to compile your amazing work into a submission for the 2014 ACE Awards.
Part four of our March 12 Ryerson DMZ tour features Jonathan Ingham, president at Phosphorus Media.
Phosphorus creates interactive media panel experiences.Clients have included L’Oreal, Adidas and Harley Davidson, among others.
Related
This year’s ACE Awards gala was, as promised, a night to remember! Well, now you can reminisce as much and as often as you like because the pictures are available through CPRSToronto’s flickr.
Thank you to everyone who joined us this past Wednesday, and congratulations again to all of this year’s winners.
[flickrslideshow acct_name=”CPRSToronto” id=”72157633353367492″]
Part three of our March 12 Ryerson DMZ tour features Christopher Berry, co-founder and chief science officer at Authintic.
Authintic’s platform is an analytics technology for permission marketing.
Related
Storified by CPRS Toronto· Wed, Apr 24 2013 19:17:25
The 2013 CPRS Toronto ACE Awards gala was an unforgettable celebration! On April 24th, CPRS Toronto welcomed over 350 of Toronto’s PR elite to acknowledge and honour the best communications campaigns in the city.
ACE Awards are given to organizations and individuals who have positively influenced the Toronto PR industry, as determined by a judging panel of seasoned communications professionals. Winners left the gala with more than a trophy – being recognized with an ACE Award is a symbol of quality and mutual respect amongst Toronto’s PR community.
Congratulations to the 2013 ACE Award recipients!
Best PR Campaign
Best Creative PR Campaign
Leadership Awards
Media Relations – Budget Over $50,000
Gold
Silver
Bronze
Media Relations – Budget under $50,000
Gold
Silver
Bronze
Best Use of Special Events.
Gold
Silver
Bronze
New Product or Service Launch Campaign of the Year
Gold
Silver
Bronze
Employee Communications Campaign of the Year
Silver
Community Relations Campaign of the Year
Gold
Silver
Bronze
Best Digital Communications Campaign of the Year
Silver
Best Use of Communication Tools (Internet, A/V, Research & Measurement, Print and Publications)
Gold
Brand Development Campaign of the Year
Gold
Silver
Bronze
Crisis or Issues Management Campaign of the Year
Bronze
Best Student PR Campaign of the Year
Gold
Silver
By: Miranda Germani
Today’s the big day: the ACE Awards gala takes place this evening! The ACE committee is busy at Arcadian Court rolling out the (metaphorical) red carpet at this very moment. Just like the Oscars’ broadcast rehashes past years’ movies and fashion before the big show, this is the perfect moment for us to take a look into our past with an ACE Awards standout.
The Sun Life Financial and High Road Communications teams took home an award last year with the BrighterLife.ca initiative, awarded in the Digital Communications Campaign category.
I was pleased to talk to Adrienne Connell, Vice President, High Road Communications before the 2013 ACE Awards officially arrive, about the success of this digital campaign.
Can you tell me about your winning campaign?
BrighterLife.ca is Sun Life Financial’s innovative digital content marketing platform. It is aimed at helping Canadians answer their money, health, family and career questions in an informal, engaging and no-pressure way. The goal is to add real value to Canadians through the power of relevant, credible, useful content. It’s a revolutionary approach that puts the needs of consumers at the forefront and it’s helped Sun Life to connect with a whole new target audience.
What was the objective and why was it so successful?
Sun Life Financial wanted to engage consumers earlier in the sales cycle, before they had considered Sun Life or were even aware that they had a need that might be met by a financial product. They already had digital marketing platforms to engage both prospective and current customers but needed a way to reach consumers who were just at the beginning of their buying journey. Typically, customers have a trigger event, such as starting a family, changing careers or thinking about retirement. Enter BrighterLife.ca to engage a wide span of Canadians from young professionals, to young families through to mature families and pre-retirees. It’s been a success because there is an incredible team of individuals behind it that ensure we’re creating magnetic content that is portable, and by that I mean letting audiences consume the content in the channels of their choice, be that on the website, e-newsletters, Facebook, Twitter or RSS. They also make a phenomenal commitment to activating that content across channels leveraging a combination of paid, earned, owned and shared channels.
How did winning an award contribute to the agency’s brand?
At both High Road and Sun Life we’re very proud to work on this award-winning initiative. It’s an amazing honour to be recognized by our peers in the industry for creating innovative ideas that hopefully inspire other brands and it has helped to solidify our voice as thought leaders in the Canadian content marketing space.
What inspired you to submit?
We are always committed to celebrating our client’s successes, and awards such as this play a key role in recognizing their great work and our continued partnership together.
What were the challenges associated with submitting an award?
While we are always looking at metrics to evaluate a program’s success, distilling those down to the highlights and capturing the essence of what makes a particular effort such as BrighterLife.ca unique isn’t always quick to pull together. It took support from Sun Life’s team and High Road’s to ensure our submission told the story of BrighterLife.ca.
What was a “must-include”in your binder submission?
Creative samples of the writing on BrighterLife.ca and the user experience design of the site. We also made sure we included materials that spoke to the overall strategy and goals. Finally we included materials that illustrated the impact we’ve had with BrighterLife.ca and the vibrant community we have built around the brand.
How did it feel to receive your award at the gala?
Really good! We enjoyed a chance to bring our two teams together for a night of celebration and fun.
What advice would you give to other entrants?
Submit! Be creative in your submission while giving a clear indication of what you set out to do, how you did it and what you ultimately achieved.
By: Natasha Nitsopoulos
The prestigious ACE Awards gala is just two days away. As we’re putting the finishing touches on what promises to be a memorable night, CPRS Toronto and the ACE Awards committee we would like to take this opportunity to thank our sponsors who have helped make this celebration of communications excellence possible!
On behalf of CPRS Toronto, we appreciate your support and would like to say thank you to:
AVW TEL-AV, a full-service audio visual resource rental company for corporate events, exhibit programs, trade shows and conventions of all sizes.
Marketwired, a customized communications solutions provider, offering targeted coverage across all media and measurement services.
Leger Marketing, the largest Canadian-owned polling, research and strategic marketing firm, with offices across Canada and the United States.
CNW Group, Canada’s leading newswire service specializing in media monitoring, photography and video services, translation, webcasting, conference call services, regulatory filling and measurement.
Canadian Press, Canada’s trusted news leader, multimedia news agency and creator of our favourite book: CP Style.
Cision, a leader in public relations planning, media monitoring, reporting and communications analysis.
News Canada, a leading provider of ready-to-use, timely, credible, newsworthy and copyright-free news content for editors, broadcasters, web and video content providers.
Infomart, a division of Postmedia Network Inc., is Canada’s leading media consultancy providing media monitoring services, research, brand solutions and corporate data.
See you on Wednesday for the 2013 ACE Awards gala!! Tweeting at the Awards? Make sure to hashtag #CPRSACE.
By: Miranda Germani
Haven’t bought your ACE Awards gala ticket yet? What are you waiting for? The ACE Awards, the Toronto PR must-attend event, is fast approaching. Tracey Bochner, President of Paradigm Public Relations, helps us break down the benefits of attending the gala.
“It is important to support CPRS and the PR industry in Toronto in general, and attending the gala is good way to do this,” says Tracey. “The ACE Awards is a place to recognize the innovative work of the PR industry in Toronto.”
The gala isn’t just a fun event, it’s also a learning opportunity. “The ACE Awards showcases some of the best work being done by communications professionals in the city. Whether the award-winning work is from agencies, corporations, government or not-for-profits, there is always something that we can learn from the creative thinking and success of others,” says Tracey.
It is also a great opportunity for networking. Each year at the gala Tracey reconnects with industry colleagues.
“The ACE Awards is an important night for us at Paradigm PR. My business partner Mike Abbass and I look forward to the gala every year,” says Tracey. “We celebrate with our amazing clients, who give us the latitude to execute creative campaigns, which result in award-winning programs, we recognize our incredibly talented staff, and we connect with colleagues to toast their successes. We never miss it.”
Ready to reap the benefits of attending the ACE Awards? Hurry, tickets are almost sold out. More information is available on the ACE Awards page.
Tweeting about the ACE Awards? Follow @CPRSToronto and use the hashtag #CPRSACE.
