Montreal newspaper The Gazette won Best in Show at the 2009 International Newsmedia Marketing Association awards, leading a cadre of large and small Canadian papers onto the world stage.
The Gazette’s “Elections” series of ads (part of its three-year-old “Words Matter” campaign) took the show’s top honour, as well as first place in the 75,000-300,000 circulation class of the Print Single-Copy Sales category.
“We are extremely proud and happy to have been recognized as the best campaign of 2008 considering the great quality of this year’s entries,” said Bernard Asselin, vice-president of marketing and reader sales and service at The Gazette, in a statement.
“Words Matter” is the work of Montreal agency BleuBlancRouge, which first launched the campaign in 2006.
The Globe and Mail’s “Hands” trade campaign also won gold in Best Campaign for Readership/Usage of the Print Newspaper among newspapers with circulations of more than 300,000. The paper’s trade agency of record, Black, created the campaign in 2008.
The Toronto Star took third place in the same category for its Earth Hour special issue.
The Winnipeg Free Press and St. Catharines Standard from Ontario won firsts in their circulation categories (75,000 to 300,000 and under 75,000, respectively) in Online Audience Usage and Engagement.
The Waterloo Region Record in Waterloo, Ont. won two awards: a silver in New Brand/Product/Audience Development, and a bronze in Print Subscription Sales.
Finally, the Toronto Sun earned a third-place finish in New Marketing Services for a special section it created for the 100th anniversary of the Toronto Automobile Dealers Association.
More than 150 newspapers from around the world submitted work for consideration in the awards, which were announced May 15.
