Now in their 24th year, the awards, which are a joint venture between the Marketing Association and NZ Marketing Magazine, recognise and celebrate the skills, expertise and work of marketing professionals and their partners that result in great business outcomes for their organisations and thought leadership for the industry. It’s the only awards programme in New Zealand that focuses on the business benefits of great marketing, and it’s judged by senior marketers and leading CEOs. 

The 16 category awards acknowledge marketing initiatives and/or projects that are clear examples of marketing leadership and success within each sector. There have been subtle changes to some of the other category descriptions and there is also one new category award this year: People/Culture. This will recognise companies that have implemented employee engagement, internal communications and/or change management programmes. 

The six judges’ choice awards recognise excellence in specific disciplines of marketing, regardless of the industry. 

There are no changes to the individual awards, which include Rookie Marketer of the Year, Marketer of the Year and the Marketing Excellence Award, with past winners of this being Philip Poole of J.H. Whittaker & Sons, Mark Callaghan of Frucor Beverages and Rob Fyfe of Air New Zealand. Nominations for inductees into the Marketing Hall of Fame are also being sought, so email [email protected] with the subject ‘Hall of Fame’. 

Heading up the sponsor line-up again this year is Premier sponsor TVNZ, Principal sponsor NZME and category sponsors; Boston Digital, BrandWorld, Image Centre Group, Mailshop, The Wine Portfolio, News Works, Ubiquity and new sponsor TNS.

Entries close Friday 22 May 2015 at 5pm. An extended ‘late entries’ deadline of 5pm on Friday 29 May is available (at a nominal fee). Entry forms, a full list of categories and more information on how to apply for late entry are available at the awards website www.everythingmarketing.co.nz. 

As for the call for entries campaign, humans collect all kinds of weird things. And marketers have been playing on that desire for decades. In recent years, it seems to have gained steam with the likes of Countdown, New World, Z and many others embracing it wholeheartedly. So in honour of that trend—and as a cheeky way to celebrate some of the industry’s best performers—now you can collect the whole set of 13 Mighty Marketers. 

Take a photo of a minimum of five of the 13 characters, either by collecting cards that will feature in the May/June edition of NZ Marketing or downloading files of marketers from stories on StopPress and printing them out (your first three are Wendy Rayner, Tim Deane and Kevin Kenrick), send it to [email protected] or Tweet us @stoppressnz with the hashtag #MightyMarketers and you’ll go in to the draw to win two tickets to the awards and one night at the Langham (with breakfast).

We’ll let you know about the inevitable swap meets and black markets onTradeMe.

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This article was originally on our sibling website, Stoppres.co.nz