So Why Enter the Cleveland Rocks Awards Competition?
Posted on Jun. 12, 2025 / Subscribe 0
By Chris R. Lynch, APR, Fellow PRSA
The 23rd annual PRSA Cleveland Rocks Awards open nominations for excellence in communications have now opened. But why should you, your company/organization enter?
There are a lot of top-of-mind reasons to enter not just Rocks, but any association award competitions: Personal, team and company/agency recognition; bragging rights; justification of planning and creative execution; and of course, there are some cool trophies.
But the fact of the matter, when it comes to entering, winning, and actually being honored with a PRSA Cleveland Rocks award for communications excellence, you and your team have achieved something truly worth recognition in your field.
Why are the ROCKS Awards important?
One very important reason to enter Cleveland Rocks is that these are awarded based on the campaign or tactics RESULTS. Not pretty pictures, or neat ideas, but the totality of the works research, measurable objectives and strategy, execution, and actual outcomes of what the project was designed to do – and what it did.
Also – the Rocks Awards don’t grow on trees. There’s only one gold, and one silver award presented per category – and oftentimes, one or neither are presented based on the determination of out-of-state PRSA leaders and APR professionals who are the independent judges. These are all very knowledgeable communication leaders, so when they give you a thumbs up, you know it’s well-earned.
The Rocks Awards forces you to take a critical look at your work
This leads to you creating better plans in the future; for example, as you’re writing up the entry – you must reevaluate your goals – did you utilize S.M.A.R.T. objectives (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Time-bound)? What did we learn from our project? Did we achieve the results we targeted? What did we really learn from our research, and did we keep it in the forefront of the program’s planning and execution? If we did the campaign or the project again, what would we have done differently?
Another reason to enter Cleveland Rocks, is that winning an award presented by your peers frankly Increases your - and your team’s – credibility, within your organization, agency, and the marketplace. It makes you, your boss, and in agency settings, the client (and the client’s spend) look good. Not to mention – and heaven forbid – it can justify, and perhaps even Increase, your budgets. Because tracking successful results, demonstrates the project’s positive ROI.
Meets your KPI expectations
For those communications managers or agency supervisors, having your campaign and/or tactic win an award is an independent way to judge your communications' key performance indicators. In developing a project plan, or your year’s goals, including it in your annual performance plan can be an effective way to determine your or your team’s success.
And come to think of it, if they provide contract bonuses for players when they make the All-Star team, or are named Most Valuable Player, well, why not a possible bonus recognition when your team takes home the Rock’s Judges Choice or Best of Show recognition?
Helps Recruit, Retain, and Reward your team(s)
People are drawn to and like to work for winners. They seek out to be in the presence of excellence, and organizations or agencies that win multiple awards – for multiple clients and/or in multiple categories – are ones that attract better practitioners who want to work among the best.
Recognition is important in the workplace. Especially these days where communications employers are looking for ways to keep their team members and associates motivated and inspired. Working on an award submission in and of itself is a good bonding exercise. And when the whole team goes onstage or smiles together for recognition on the ‘blue’ carpet for pictures… that’s the time for the boss to call out your staff for a job well done. And perhaps provide some additional compensation, benefits, or appreciation back at the office (time off, office party, out-of-office team building event, etc.)
Demonstrates your expertise
And finally, a couple of the obvious ones: for agencies, winning awards can sometimes create new business opportunities, and it can even position you against your competition if you can show off you’ve award-winning work in a particular category (ahem, obviously we’re talking about pitching against other agencies OUTSIDE of Northeast Ohio) …
And finally, award winning builds up your personal and organization’s brand. It provides peer recognition, adds to your resume, allows some bragging rights on social media and post-victory press releases.
And well, those shiny trophies sure do look good in the lobby, don’t they?
So BTW, here are some important dates for 23rd annual Cleveland Rocks Awards:
Early Bird Entries Deadline: June 20, 2025
Regular entry deadline: July 25, 2025
Cleveland Rocks Awards Presentation: Tuesday, November 18, 2025, The Aviator (American Contemporary Pub) 20920 Brookpark Rd., Cleveland, 5:30 p.m.
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