Industry Awards – media and web 2.0 and stuff

AdNews popped this in my Inbox this afternoon:

New awards go to work for media brands

As Australian media companies fight for dollars in a slowing market, a new awards program seeks to champion the benefits to advertisers of a truly innovative media sector.

Mobile marketing, sponsorship, point of sale, sampling, direct mail, ambient, telemarketing, datacasting – there are many marketing mediums queuing up to take spend away from main media.

Yet the sector has unique benefits in terms of audience involvement. The MediaWorks Awards were launched last night at Jones Bay Wharf, Sydney, by AdNews to highlight the most effective media brands in Australia and showcase what they can offer to advertisers.

The awards program is supported by the Australian Association of National Advertisers (AANA), the Australian Marketing Institute and the Media Federation of Australia (MFA). (more)

Them’s not the awards I was talking about a month or two ago. They are industry awards – I’m talking about awards awarded by members/users. You in other words. So if you find a cool Australian Web 2.0 site, podcast, blog, wiki, forum, social network, check and see if it’s submitted on Bloggerati Australia (www.bloggerati.com.au). If it is, you don’t have to register, you can just vote. If it’s not there, do a quick register and submit it. You can also discuss the awards and anything else your little heart desires on the forums.

Industry awards are fine but a little self-perpetuating. The same people do the rounds of being nominated, winning, nominating and judging. Though granted they are knowledgeable, it’s more fun if we choose the winners ourselves no? Let’s give the great unwashed a voice. Yes m’love that is you. Oh and I am hunting around for prizes for winners. Any ideas? (socks and jocks springs to mind). Let’s show ’em exactly how MediaWorks. 🙂

Here’s the .PDF – with Folksonomy tags in it for Pete’s sake. LOL.

“Media effectiveness is of vital concern to the AANA on behalf of its advertising, marketing and media members,” said AANA executive director Collin Segelov. “Such high-profile recognition of media brands achieving the most through innovation, insight, audience involvement and damned hard work is very welcome in an increasingly competitive media marketplace.

I’m really interested in low-profile recognition. Us. We Media. Citizen BigMouth.

Media brands are judged on their output and processes during the past year across a range of criteria including innovation, audience development, insight, accountability and cost-effectiveness. In essence, the awards examine how media brands have grown their audience, what efforts they have made to understand that audience and how they have helped their advertisers reach that audience in an involving, relevant, and above all, cost-effective and accountable way.

Ah well, let’s ignore their criteria and develop our own. Vote on Bloggerati for those sites and applications that you found to be innovative, developed YOU as an audience, that you felt had insight and understanding into who you are (is that too girlie?), that were accountable to you the user (not a bunch of shareholders or advertisers) and that didn’t cost you an arm and a leg. Doesn’t have to be free but that helps. :P.

So get voting and keep the last Friday in November free. Oh and make no mistake about it – Bloggerati is a directory (of your sites), a yellow pages (of your services and blogposts), and an online newspaper (with your articles) battling on just like the others. It’s just run by a bunch of totally nutso people (you).

I wonder how many people on their sponsorship list are on Facebook? Not that that means anything.