Awards

The Cannes Lions is open for entries and the deadline for submissions in the PR category is March 9. There are also new categories that PR agencies might be interested in trying out for. PR winners will be announced Monday, June 18. The festival will take place June 17 through the 23.

Hopefully PR entrants will fare a little better this year. In 2011, there was some static over the selection of an ad agency as the PR category winner. At the time, Porter Novelli‘s Israel Mirsky told us the the PR industry was still learning how to pull together a winning submission. Last year’s PR Lions Jury president and Fleishman-Hillard CEO Dave Senay is here to help with the video above outlining what it takes to win. Take notes folks.

Create a social media strategy, launch your campaign, and track the results in our Social Media Marketing Boot Camp starting February 16. The online event and workshop will feature speakers including The Onion‘s Baratunde Thurston (left), Facebook’s Morin Oluwole, and bitly’s Tim Devane. Register now.

PR Daily and Ragan.com are handing out the first PR Daily Awards this year, with the grand prize winner receiving 10 free registrations to any of Ragan Communications’ conferences in 2012 or 2013.

Prizes will be handed out in a wide range of categories including Best Product Launch and Best Facebook Page. Each winner in those categories will receive a free registration. The grand prize will be handed out for the Best PR Campaign of 2011.

Judges include Reuters financial reporter and blogging editor Felix Salmon; Carlos Dominguez, SVP at Cisco; and Altimeter Group’s Jeremiah Owyang.

Click here for more info on entering. Winners will be announced the week of May 21.

Awards season isn’t just for Hollywood.

The PRSA is now accepting submissions for the Silver Anvil Awards, which will be handed out on June 7 in New York City. Categories include community relations, events, brand/reputation management, and crisis communications. Final deadline for submissions is February 24, with a $75 entry-fee discount for those who enter by February 10. More info about the Silver Anvils is available here.

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The deadline for submitting your entry to the 16th annual Webby Awards is next Friday, December 16. The Webbys recognize the best in websites, mobile and apps, interactive advertising and media, and Web video.

This year, The Webbys have introduced a number of new categories including CSR and best editorial writing in the websites category, and best utilities and services (like apps and mobile sites) for handheld devices.

The Webbys will be handed out in the Spring with nominees announced in April. Judging is conducted by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences.

This year, Vogue editor Anna Wintour made quite the splash when she accepted her award.

It’s that CRAPPy time of year again, when PR people and the media in the U.K. come together to honor the box-clever, the most PR-friendly newspaper, and the least “twattish” on Twitter.  Agency 10 Yetis came up with the CRAPP Awards (Communicative Relations Awards from PR Professionals) last year for no other reason we can see than to get a bit of attention.  Over 12,000 votes were cast last year.  Submitting your email address puts you in a drawing for 3G Amazon Kindle, but such a contest could be bent.

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PR Newswire has launched “The Earnies,” an award program to recognize social media campaigns with earned results. A panel will decide on finalists that will be narrowed down to category winners through voting on, you guessed it, social media.

The panel now includes David Armano, Edelman Digital’s EVP of global innovation and integration; Matt Johnston, uTest CMO; Tim Moore, SVP of Maximum and CEO of CrushIQ; Liz Strauss, SOBCon and owner of Successful-Blog.com; and Deidre Breckenridge, CEO of Pure Performance Communications.

The deadline for submissions is December 20. Categories include “Best Use of Video in Social Media” and “Best Connection to Twitter, LinkedIn or Facebook Audience.” Winners will be announced via @AgilityAtWork in early 2012. This year, the program is open to U.S. candidates, but is expected to go global next year.

The Dubai International Advertising Festival has added two categories to the 2012 awards ceremony — PR and mobile.

The PR category will recognize a reputation management campaign that builds “trust and understanding between individuals, businesses or organisations and their publics.” The mobile category will acknowledge mobile sites, games, apps, and campaigns. The PR category will have its own jury while mobile will be judged by the interactive jury.

The Dubai Festival will begin accepting entries on December 13. The event will take place between March 4 and March 7, 2012 at the Madinat Jumeirah Hotel in Dubai. This is the fifth year for the event, which has also launched a LinkedIn page for those wanting to follow on that social media platform.

Last night, the Shorty Awards, the annual honoring of the best and brightest in 140 characters, hosted a cocktail party where they announced the opening of the industry awards for entries. Among the categories: Best Use of Social Media in Real Life (“IRL”), Best Use of a Hashtag on Twitter, and a few new categories, like Best Social Media Manager.

The marketing jury, which judges the industry awards has also doubled in size. Among those on the list are Stephanie Agresta, Weber Shandwick‘s EVP, MD of social media; Andy Morris, founding partner at The Morris King & Company; and Ian Schafer, CEO of Deep Focus.

This is the fourth year for the awards.

Beyoncé stole the show at last night’s MTV Video Music Awards before the show even started. Her pregnancy announcement, made on the red carpet, was followed by a performance where her baby belly was on full display.

Besides an interview with Piers Morgan in June where she said she always thought she’d have a baby by the age of 30, there wasn’t a lot of ink spilled about whether she was pregnant (not that we saw anyway). This in a time when Jennifer Aniston, Angelina Jolie, Reese Witherspoon and countless others take a tabloid cover each week with fake baby bump sightings and speculation.

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MTV‘s annual Video Music Awards — the coveted Moonman presentations — are now in their 28th year, set to air Sunday, August 28. Among the network’s most popular features — and still focused on music videos, of all things — the VMAs have also become a showcase of outrageous celebrity behavior, such as Kanye West’s rude intrusion during Taylor Swift’s speech, and the now-legendary Madonna-Britney kiss. These displays/publicity stunts tend to spur more post-show buzz than the actual award winners.

This year, MTV’s aiming to generate a different sort of post-VMA buzz, one that doesn’t rely on allegedly unplanned bad manners. The network last week announced the addition of a new award category, “Best Video With a Message,” meant to honor artists whose recent music videos featured a positive message or raised awareness of important social issues.

The category’s creation was a no-brainer, according to MTV president Stephen Friedman. “During the past year, we’ve seen a remarkable number of artists use their music to explore deeply personal experiences and issues they were passionate about to create powerful videos that resonated with and inspired millions of fans,” he said.

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