Why Enter the 20th Anniversary Cleveland Rocks Award Competitions?
Posted on Jul. 28, 2022 / Subscribe 0
By Chris R. Lynch APR, Fellow PRSA; SVP at Falls & Co.
There are a lot of top-of-mind reasons to enter association award competitions: Personal, team and company/agency recognition; bragging rights; justification of planning and creative execution; and cool trophies.
But the fact of the matter, at least when it comes to entering and 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 the Rocks awards (especially worthwhile in this, the 20th anniversary of their founding), is that these are awards that are presented based on the submitted campaign or tactics RESULTS. Not pretty pictures, or just a neat idea, but the research, the 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. Oftentimes, one or neither are presented based on out-of-state PRSA leaders and APR recipients who are the award submission 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 had out sights set upon? What did we really learn from our research, and did we keep it in the forefront of the program’s execution? What would we have done differently? What would we do if we were going to launch the project again?
Winning an award presented by your peers also increases your--and your team’s--credibility (within your organization, agency, the marketplace, etc.). It makes you; your boss and in agency settings, the client look good. Not to mention--and heaven forbid--it can justify, and perhaps even Increase, your budgets. This is because you now have to track results, relate them to the project’s ROI, and all in a positive manner.
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 the year’s goals, including it/they be honored with an independently judged, results-oriented outcome can be an effective way to determine 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 your award-winning work in a particular category (and we’re talking about pitching against other agencies OUTSIDE of Northeast Ohio, naturally) …
And finally, award winning provides peer recognition, builds up your resume, allow some bragging rights on social media and post-victory press releases, and doggonit, those shiny trophies sure do look good in the lobby, don’t they?
So BTW, here are some important dates for 20th annual Rocks Awards:
Entries Open: Monday August 1, 2022
Entries Close: Friday September 7, 2022
Rocks Awards Presentation: Tuesday, December 6, 2022, 6:00 pm, Music Box Supper Club In the Flats, Cleveland Ohio
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