The Irish Times was recognised in two categories at the International News Media Association Global Media Awards this week in London.
The awards recognise the most innovative initiatives to grow audience, revenue and brand. The 2016 competition generated 699 entries from 264 news brands in 40 countries.
In the Best Marketing Solution for an Advertising Client category, The Irish Times was awarded third place for the collaborative partnership that was the AIB Start-Up Academy. It also came in third place in the Best Execution of Native Advertising category for its content work on Kenco’a Coffee V Gangs initiative.
For the AIB entry, the brief, provided by AIB’s agency Starcom, was to help further enhance AIB as the leading bank for start-ups and to extend the reach and recall of The AIB Start-Up Academy. The partnership aims to further enhance brand perception of AIB amongst the start-up community. The partnership allows both partners to engage with start-up customers in a positive and on-going way, according to the Irish Times.
For the Kenco Coffee V Gangs campaign, Kenco took 20 young people, selected by local NGOs, and enrolled them in a one-year training course to give them the skills to work in the coffee industry. The Irish Times set about creating a multiplatform content lead solution, across digital and print platforms, incorporating the best use of writing, video, audio and images to convey a real and honest portrayal of the people, places and issues involved, meeting all objectives set out in the brief, provided by Kenco’s agency at the time of commissioning, PHD.
Dedicated to surfacing the best ideas in media worldwide, the INMA Global Media Awards competition received 699 entries from 264 news brands in 40 countries, of which 117 made the final shortlist.
“The best place for media companies to look for ideas and inspiration is internationally,” said Earl J. Wilkinson, executive director and CEO of INMA. “And what we see in the finalists for this year’s Global Media Awards are aspirational brand stories connecting with audiences, delivering value for advertisers, and making a commitment to innovation.”
According to Viv McKechnie, Irish Times Business to Business Director: “We are not only delighted with this acknowledgment on an international level for The Irish Times but also for our partners in both instances AIB and Kenco. Commitment to innovation in publishing excellence is nothing new to the Irish Times, and this, the latest acknowledgment from a global community, reaffirms our core purpose which has been to produce content that is trusted, appropriate and engaging, values that have not wavered in over 150 years.”
