PICA Awards painted purple by New Media wins

From a tough selection of entrants, New Media received five awards for the publications it produces for Woolworths, Plascon, and the agency's own consumer titles.

The PICA Awards, held by the Magazine Publishers Association of South Africa, are known as the Oscars of the South African magazine industry and celebrate publishing and editorial excellence. Providing custom publishing and internal communications services to a broad range of blue-chip clients, whilst also maintaining a selection of consumer titles and products, New Media is South Africa's leading multi-platform content marketing agency.

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For Woolworths TASTE magazine, which is edited by Sumien Brink, New Media was honoured in two categories. Its first award was in the "Retail & Consumer Goods" in the Customer Publishing Excellence Awards. TASTE also received one of the highest accolades; for the fourth time, the magazine was named the "Customer Magazine of the Year."

"To have these awards bestowed upon the hard-working team which produces TASTE, particularly when we're celebrating our tenth anniversary, is an incredible honour. The onus is on skilful creative and editorial to craft an aspirational platform that showcases the client artistically, while always remembering that our readers are as much a client we need to serve," Brink says of the win and the overarching thinking behind TASTE magazine.

VISI magazine, which falls under Brink's editorship as well, also took two awards. The first was in the "Consumer Publishing Excellence Awards" section with the cover of its 64th issue named the "Consumer Cover of The Year".

VISI, like its sister publication, also took home one of the most coveted accolades; the Philip Tyler Trophy for the Best Launch/Relaunch. In July the magazine received a complete overhaul focusing on a multi-media strategy, while staying true to its essence of being an authority within the design, décor, and architecture sphere.

New Media also received an award for Plascon Spaces magazine, which the agency produces and publishes on behalf of Plascon. The magazine received an award "Visual Production of the Year - Customer," in the Editorial Publishing Excellence Awards section. The winning spread was the "Fade To Blue" layout which was published in issue 9 of Plascon Spaces celebrating one of 2012's biggest fashion and décor trends - ombre.

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New Media's PICA wins come off the back of the agency recently receiving Bronze and Gold awards at the Pearl Awards held in New York earlier this week.

Commenting on the awards, Irna van Zyl, founder and executive director of New Media, says, "It's truly been an amazing week. We expected some wins, but the recognition New Media has received from the industry, both locally and globally, has been both overwhelming and humbling."

"Not just the teams involved in putting together these products are thrilled about these wins, but the whole company. Also incredibly proud are our client partners without whose assistance we would never be able to so beautifully produce these publications. These accolades are a great testament to the immense collaborative effort all parties put in to develop and produce strong and relevant content not only for the consumers, but that also serves our client's needs. This - at the end of the day - is the only reason we're in business."