It's awards season in the magazine publishing industry, with the Magazine Publishers' Association of SA (MPASA) Pica Awards, for magazine publishing and editorial excellence, having being judged over the past month. The awards ceremony will be in Cape Town this year, 21 November 2008. It's probably the only event left in our industry where OTT 'ballgown chic' still applies! Then the Advantage AdMag Awards also launch this month, with Bizcommunity.com as the online media partner this time around. The entry deadline is only January, with the awards in April 2009, but Bizcommunity is sponsoring a new award this year: the Advantage/Bizcommunity.com Innovative Digital Publishing Award for those magazine print titles with a digital edition. All the entry details will be released later this month. And finally, after years of talk, we will have our own online media and publishing awards in South Africa, with the launch of the Online Publishing Association's (OPA) Bookmark Awards. Bizcommunity.com is the online media partner and since we've been actively lobbying for such awards for years to highlight online publishing, creative and web excellence, we will be going large on these ones in particular. Awards reward and highlight excellence in an industry and give aspirant players a benchmark of what is considered great. We need those benchmarks to grow industry sectors and provide levity and encouragement in tough times.
Good luck! Louise Marsland, editor: editor@bizcommunity.com. All marketing news to: marketingnews@bizcommunity.com. Responses to this column welcomed in our new online editor's column archive or on our blog: http://blog.bizcommunity.com.