When the Call for Entries goes out for our 2012 North American and EMEA region SABRE Awards (early next month), there will be five new categories designed to recognize the increasingly strategic role public relations is playing in the C-suite and at the most senior levels of client organizations. The new awards will recognize the role of public relations agencies in brand-building and corporate branding; the increasing sophistication of measurement and evaluation techniques; the importance of the chief executive in effective communication; and organizations that employ public relations in the broadest sense to enhance their reputations and expand their business. “From the beginning, SABRE has stood for Superior Achievement in Branding and Reputation,” says The Holmes Report chief executive Paul Holmes. “These new awards are designed to recognize work that is the ultimate expression of that standard, work that makes a measurable difference to an organization’s bottom line performance. “We will be selecting a separate judging panel of very senior professionals to judge these new categories, and we will be holding entries to the highest standard—which means that in some years there may be no winner if our judges are not sufficiently excited by the submissions we receive.” The five new awards are:
  • The SABRE Award for Superior Achievement in Brand-Building: This award will recognize public relations work that has played in a central role in brand strategy, positioning and messaging. Successful submissions will demonstrate that the PR professionals involved—on either the agency or in-house team—took a lead role in creating and developing a brand platform and explain how that platform shifted perceptions, built stronger customer relationships, and ultimately drove sales.
  • The SABRE Award for Superior Achievement in Reputation Management: This award will recognize public relations work that has played in a central role in corporate strategy, positioning and messaging. Successful submissions will demonstrate that the PR professionals involved—on either the agency or in-house team—took a lead role in creating and developing a corporate reputation platform and explain how that platform shifted perceptions, built stronger stakeholders relationships, and ultimately contributed to corporate performance.
  • The SABRE Award for Superior Achievement in Measurement and Evaluation: This award will recognize public relations campaigns that made a meaningful and measurable contribution to an organization’s bottom-line results. Winning entries will focus on metrics such as stakeholder engagement, stakeholder attitudes, “net promoter score” (or similar), sales results, or business performance, and will make a compelling case that these results were directly related to effective communications.
  • Company of the Year: This award will recognize a corporation (or other organization) that has embraced public relations as a key management discipline and can demonstrate that public relations has made a significant contribution over the course of the year to its overall performance. Winning submissions will demonstrate that organizational behavior and organizational communications are aligned, and that public relations activities attain the highest levels of integrity, authenticity, and effectiveness.
  • CEO of the Year: This award will recognize the chief executive of a corporation or other organization who has worked diligently to enhance the role of public relations within his or her organization, or demonstrated a clear commitment to ensuring that the organization embraces the principles of ethical and effective public relations, in its culture, its communications and its actions.
More details on these new awards will be included in the Call for Entries materials, which will be distributed in October.