The Public Relations Society of America, New York Chapter, convened to recognize organizations, campaigns and people that reflect the work done in PR over the past year on June 2 at the Mandarin Oriental in NYC. Judged by more than 80 leading industry professionals, the awards honored everything from targeted marketing to corporate social responsibility and singled out a few individuals for prestigious awards.
Those individual recipients tended to wax enthusiastic about the benefits of belonging to PRSA and the collegiality membership affords. Accepting the John W. Hill Award for outstanding leadership by a chief executive, Grace Leong, CEO and partner at Hunter Public Relations, paraphrased Lou Gehrig: "I consider myself the luckiest person in PR because of the relationships I have formed over the years." And Art Stevens, managing partner at The Stevens Group, recipient of the PRSA-NY President's Award recognizing ethical conduct and outstanding service, said of the skills that have buoyed him through a long career in PR "I learned it all right here at PRSA New York."
When it came to the campaign awards, special recognition goes to Ketchum, which won award after award for its work with Michelin, the Truth anti-tobacco campaign and MasterCard, the latter campaign also winning the show-stopping Best of the Best Award.
Judging by applause, a special crowd favorite was Butler Associates, LLC for Uniformed Firefighters Association of Greater New York. This campaign won the award for Best Business/Campaign Outcomes by successfully helping to restore disability protections for NYC firefighters.
Also recognized by the night's presenters were PRSA-NY's inaugural 15 Under 35 Awards recipients, who will officially be honored at a luncheon on July 21.
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