Valley PR Blog

Here’s a good idea: The Oddy Awards

By Len Gutman on June 12th, 2008 In Hype!

I admit I’m pretty skeptical of business awards, especially the ones that require an “entry fee.” I suppose I’m not the only one. But local marketing and design house Keane creative decided to do something about it — the result is the Oddy Awards. Here’s the description:

The Oddy Award is an annual honor reserved solely for outstanding marketing creativity. Keane is not recognizing things like the highest sales, the most employees or the biggest budgets. Amazing ideas can come from any company, from the small bookstore on the corner to the corporate headquarters downtown.

Perhaps this innovation is an internal process developed to recruit more employees. Or it could be a new web application that saved time for customers, or an ad campaign, or a trade show promotion, or a hundred other things. The bottom line is that if it relates to marketing or communications, we want to hear about it.

Each month Keane will nominate one idea/company, feature them on its blog, and then in March 2009 gather the nominees at an awards ceremony where one nominee wins a paid registration to a marketing/pr conference of their choice.

The Business Journal even wrote a piece on the Oddy’s this week. Keane Creative co-founder Russ Perry says PR firms should definitely considering entering their work:

“This is an excellent, and free way to showcase potential client work, and if selected you’ll receive recognition throughout the marketing and design community. This is not a commercialized venture – we care about unique and quality ideas. Too many of the ranking/award systems have turned into for-profit sponsorship ventures, we feel has gotten slightly out of hand. The Oddy Awards are our attempt to combat that!”

A good ideas in my book. To learn more, visit www.theoddy.com. More information on Keane Creative is available at http://www.keanecreative.com.

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