Cape Town and SA score at IPRA

Cape-based public affairs company, Corporate Image Holdings, has brought to five the number of national and international awards the company has received since 2001. The company has just won the top overall institutional public relations campaign in the 2003 IPRA Golden World Awards. It also received the top award for the project, which had globally shown the most outstanding research and evaluation out of all 219 international entries.

Corporate Image's entry was for a two-year campaign to reposition Cape Town as an international urban renewal success story and new investment location. The entry was submitted for work done on behalf of the Cape Town Partnership. Corporate Image won the Financial Mail Gold Prism Awards in both 2001 and 2002 and the Research and Evaluation Award in 2003.

The International Public Relations Association (IPRA) is the premier body for senior international public relations professionals. The competition's international jury, composed of 43 senior practitioners from 20 countries, completed its adjudication of 219 shortlisted entries in London on September 5th. Criteria used by the jury to examine each entry included the competence and quality demonstrated in terms of research, planning, execution and evaluation, the clarity and coherence of messages, creativity and ethics, as well as local conditions in the country of origin.

14 different countries won top prizes in the IPRA Golden World Awards, including entries from Australia, Canada, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Poland, Republic of Korea, Singapore, South Africa, Sweden, Turkey, UK and the USA. The GWA, now in their 13th year, are organised by the International Public Relations Association.

This is the first time since 1997 that a South African entry has won, with Nedbank also winning an award for its internal communication campaign and the Creativity Award.

"These winners, both from in-house and agency entries, show evidence of world class, planning, execution and measurement" noted Jury Chairman, Louis Capozzi, Chairman and CEO of Manning, Selvage & Lee, (USA). "The GWA entries from both mature and emerging public relations marketplaces continue to reach higher standards each year, and the judging is becoming increasingly challenging. This year our jury had to compare several, outstanding programmes from small and emerging public relations marketplaces, with entries which have used perhaps ten times the budget in a much bigger country or on a regional or even world wide basis.

"In spite of the difficulties of comparing such a diverse group of entries," said Capozzi, "our jurors in London this year were finally persuaded by evidence of strategic planning, sound and original creativity, and most importantly, first class evidence of the results meeting the stated objectives."

The Awards will be made in New York in February 2004, where an overall Grand Prize for Excellence will be made.