Call for entries for 2004 Prism Awards

The Prisa Prism Award is presented to public relations and communication professionals who have successfully incorporated strategy, creativity and professionalism into public relations and communication programmes and strategies that showcase a successful public relations campaign.

"Last year the Prism Award entries were very disappointing, but we look forward to a higher standard of entries this year" says Morne Ebersohn, Chairman of the Prisa Public Relations Consultants Chapter (PRCC). "If your business or consultancy has a programme or strategy to highlight the difference successful public relations and communication management can make, then you should enter".

According to Ebersohn, the Prism awards judging standards will be even more stringent this year. "The awards play an important role in benchmarking the standard of public relations in South Africa," he says.

"We will be placing greater focus on the areas of research and evaluation this year. The judging panel felt that this was the one area where most entries failed last year. It is important that we use the knowledge we gain from the previous year to ensure that entries are improved the next year. We would like to host regional workshop during the next couple of months to assist contestants with preparing their entries for the 2004 Prism entries".

According to Ebersohn the judging panel for the 2004 Prism Awards will consist of many of the same judges from previous years. "We believe that this adds a consistency during the judging process. We are currently approaching some of the public relations industry's biggest critics to join the judging panel. The organising committee firmly believes that people who are very outspoken about the quality of public relations services in South Africa should join us in raising the standards rather than stand on the sideline," he says.

Ebersohn has made a specific call to corporate public relations practitioners to submit some of their outstanding work for the PRISM Awards. "The PRISM Awards are open to both corporate practitioners as well as public relations consultancies. We have always had the support from the consulting community, and would like to make a special appeal to corporate practitioners to also take part in the awards."

"We want to also request our peers in the communication industry to advise us of outstanding work that they think should be included in the Prisa Prism Awards. We will then make a specific call to those companies to take part in the awards," he said.

The deadline for the 2004 Public Relations & Communication Management Institute of Southern Africa (PRISA) PRISM Awards is on 14 January 2004. More information is available from the PRISA website at www.prisa.co.za.