Thinking about entering the Volunteer Chapter's PRSA Awards of Excellence
this year? Not quite convinced that you should? Read on and then think it
over again. The following comes from someone who did enter. The entry won
Best of Show at the Volunteer Chapter's Awards of Excellence and a Bronze
Anvil nationally.
For more information about entering the Volunteer Chapter's PRSA Awards of
Excellence for 2002, contact Holly Egan at 865.588.7646 or
[log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]> .

Why you should enter the PRSA awards program
By Shelley Johansson

If someone had told me when I started this job that Shelton Communications
Group would go from first-time participant in the local PRSA awards to Best
of Show and a Bronze Anvil in just three years, I don't think I would have
believed it. Don't get me wrong - it's not that I don't have faith in my
work, and heaven knows I have tremendous confidence in the incredibly
talented people who work here. I simply didn't realize how great the
potential really is to win, until I grabbed the bull by the horns and
started entering. In fact, I believe that many people don't realize it, and
that's why our local awards committee asked me to share this story.
The piece that won our 2001 Bronze Anvil was a booklet sent out as our 2000
holiday card. The booklet was designed to promote Shelton Communications
Group's strategic marketing planning services while wishing recipients a
happy holiday. It's a strategic market plan for Santa himself, detailing
recommendations on how he can gain more believers. These recommendations
included: company logo and colors ("coal black" and "Santa red"); updated
tag line ("Ho. Ho. Yo."); an improved distribution system ("the public will
be able to access the Santa Web site to check their 'naughty' or 'nice'
status"); a new product line (including "Chimney Grease" and "SC One"
cologne); and increased public appearances ("these appearances, along with
blanket coverage of malls during December, will help bolster belief in Santa
among key audiences.") The final page of the booklet reads simply, "Happy
holidays from the agency that still believes in Santa."
The original idea was kind of a joke - our art director, Stewart Pack, threw
it out at a brainstorming meeting, and we all giggled before we realized,
hey, wait, that's actually a wonderful concept. Like most great ideas, it
caught fire on its own, and the collaboration was truly a joy.  Senior
Copywriter Lance McCluskey and I wrote most of the copy, laughing as we did
it, and Stewart did the design work. Our production manager, Patti Long,
found a wonderfully festive, sparkly paper for the print job.
We got a tremendous response from many of our clients, friends and vendors,
and the card did a great job in promoting our planning services. It was
always among the things we chose to enter during the 2001 awards season -
first, it received a gold ADDY award, before taking an Award of Excellence
and Best of Show in the Volunteer Chapter's PRSA awards. The prestigious
national graphic design magazine HOW published it in the October 2001
"self-promotion" issue - it was one of 149 chosen from 3,650 entries
worldwide. Of course, the biggest accolade of all was the Bronze Anvil, one
of just 40 awarded in 2001. It won in the "Special Publications/Single
Issue" category, beating out second-place Award of Commendation entries from
Nike and Days Inn. Believe me, if you're a marketing firm and you beat Nike,
you're having a mighty fine day.
Several people told me they thought this was the first Bronze Anvil winner
ever from our chapter. That's too bad, because the level of talent locally
is extremely high, and our chapter members and their respective
organizations are quite capable of winning. In fact, Shelton wasn't the only
local firm to succeed at the 2001 Bronze Anvil competition - Ackermann
Public Relations took home an Award of Commendation in the "feature stories"
category. Also, Eastman Chemical won an Award of Commendation in the
"marketing business to business" category of the 2001 Silver Anvils.
Writing the short essays for each PRSA entry need not be discouraging - it's
not that hard to do, and gets easier and faster for every one you write. I
started out entering just one program in the 1999 local awards, and won an
Award of Quality. Thus encouraged, the following year I attended award
workshops and showed my entry essays to a friend in the chapter to get her
feedback. Serving as a judge on last year's reciprocal awards from Nashville
further honed my skills. But mostly, the experience of writing my entries -
the successful and unsuccessful ones - and reading the judges' feedback
helped me tremendously when I sat down to write the Anvil entry.
So the moral of the story is - enter our local Awards of Excellence and the
Anvil awards. The more entries our competition has, the more prestigious it
is, and the more money we raise for the chapter - and the more our chapter
can do. It's a fabulous way to gain recognition for yourself and your
organization, and with this audience I hardly need mention the potential PR
value, internally as well as externally. Entering the Anvils helps build our
chapter's national reputation, and I know the work our chapter members do
more than measures up to the competition. Most importantly, participating in
these award programs is a lot of fun. So if I can borrow the tag line from a
certain well-known athletic company - just do it!