Now for the big news – I’m excited to say that Affect won a Big Apple in the Integrated Communications: Business-to-Business category!  We won the award for the lead generation campaign that we executed with Regus in Q4 2009.  The campaign was a public relations, marketing and social media campaign designed to raise awareness and drive demand for Regus’ business-ready solutions in Manhattan.  You can see the full list of Big Apple winners here.  Congratulations to all!

And finally, on a personal note, I want to say how proud I am to be a part of the Affect Strategies team.  I’m continuously inspired by the creativity, dedication and passion of my colleagues.  Congrats, guys!

Current PRSA-NY President Deborah Radman gave Sandra kudos for working tirelessly to help the chapter embrace technology in the practice of PR.

We had an amazing time at The Rainbow Room (which, sadly, may still be closing) at the top of Rockefeller Center, drinking bellinis and rubbing elbows with the other winners.

We also had our own Affect-style celebration a few hours earlier, featuring cookies and a champagne toast.

If you know Sandra, you know she’s never one to make a big deal about her accomplishments. But please join me in congratulating her on this much-deserved honor!

I’ll link to the official photoset from the event as soon as it’s posted. In the meantime, you can get a taste of the festivities from our Flickr stream.

YAY, SANDRA!

Matt and I walked into the seminar armed with knowledge of the how important a solid awards program is for our agency. Affect Strategies is getting ready to re-launch with a brand new logo and website, and major part of our strategic marketing plan for 2009 is to focus on and expand internal public relations and marketing efforts.  As a former coworker and friend once told me, “The best PR is the PR you do for yourself.”

The seminar was extremely focused and helpful. Emmanuel and Ellen are more than qualified to provide tips for awards submissions, having won awards for their submissions over the years and serving as judges for the Big Apple Awards along with the prestigious Silver Anvil Awards.

Here are a few of my key takeaways:

Follow the Rules: Award submission guidelines are critically important. Oftentimes judges will check over the format of submissions before they dive in and begin reading. A great entry could potentially lose points or be discarded simply because it wasn’t laid out and submitted properly. It’s important for every award submission to be textbook quality, and this means paying careful attention to details like fonts, margins and size.

Tell a Story: Your submission should tell the story of an extraordinary business challenge that your agency overcame by utilizing the power of public relations. Remember that your word choice is extremely important. Make sure that your entry is written clearly to explain the entire process of your public relations campaign.

Research is Key: All award entries should have a section that clearly states the research that was conducted for the campaign. Your research prior to the execution of your campaign demonstrates to the judges that your agency saw a need that your client had, and did the research and work that was necessary to address that need. And, when you think about it, can a PR campaign really be executed properly without preliminary research?

Impact Trumps Tactics: In the end, the impact of your campaign is more important than the tactics that you used to get the results. Make sure that the impact and results of your campaign are clearly defined and well-worded.

Support Every Point: It is critical that every point in your summary is supported in your supplementary materials or binder. Provide as much support material as allowed, including memos, plan overviews, meeting notes, and interactions with the client and/or media. Make sure that all supporting materials are clearly organized and labeled.

I think that the most important takeaway for me was Ellen’s reminder to get back to basics. The main thing to keep in mind when submitting for an award is that you are simply trying to communicate how your agency used the discipline of PR to successfully over come a client’s problem.

A big thanks to PRSA-NY and Emmanuel and Ellen! We hope to see you soon at an awards banquet!

-Katie Safrey