Traditional

• Best Crisis Management: Have you met and defeated a threat you had no control over and managed to strengthen yourself in the process? If so, show us and tell us. How well did you and your leaders improvise under extreme, unprecedented pressure?
• Best External Publication (Print or Online): Are you publishing a print or online magazine or newsletter for your organization or client—one that captures attention, builds brand loyalty and grabs the readers from the start? We want to see it. Please include a PDF or send in hardcopies.
• Best Infographic: This award goes to the infographic that is so clearly and cleverly designed that it delivers its news quickly and is shared instantly on social and traditional media. Send us your graphic and tell us the outcome.
• Best Op-Ed Piece: Opinion pieces have been in the PR toolbox for as long as anyone can remember. They establish credibility for your clients and/or company, and they are powerful weapons in your branding arsenal. Pick your best pieces and send them to us.
• Best PR White Paper: There are any number of ways you can score in this category. We’re not necessarily looking for eloquence, or elegance, or even unusual logical skills. Just enter a clean, informative white paper and you’ll be on your way to scoring high marks in this category.
• Best Product Launch: Tell us how your PR department or client blew away customers and the media with a new product launch. Describe the tactics and strategy and show us the outcome.
• Best Publicity Campaign: A publicity stunt can be worth a thousand words. It may directly or indirectly generate profits for your client, or it may just highlight your message. Either way, we'd like to see your stunt and find out what ideas inspired its creation.
• Best Speech: They seem so old-school, but a good speech is still the powerful PR tool it's always been. We know speechwriting, so we'll be looking at how you grab and keep the audience, your use of quotes, anecdotes and statistics. This is a category we encourage everyone to enter. A script is good, but video would be great!
• Best Traditional Campaign: We're inundated these days by social media tactics and strategies. But what about good, old-fashioned traditional PR? Successful entries will pivot on the use of traditional, integrated public relations. The campaign could include news releases, events, television, press conferences and publicity stunts.
• Best Traditional News Release: Have you written a great press release, one that you're particularly proud of? We'd like to see it. Our panel of judges will look at everything: subject lines, headlines and body copy.

Digital/Social Media

• Best Blog: Blogs remain one of the best avenues for engaging customers, prospects and delivering news. Send us links to blogs you've created for your company or client. Tell us how they’ve engaged readers and helped the organization grow and thrive. Please include a link to the blog and a minimum of 3 posts.
• Best Electronic Newsletter: It's no secret that old-fashioned email newsletters are among the best marketing and PR tools—even in the age of new, shiny social media. We want to see the newsletter you created for your company or client and hear how it performed. Again, presentation and great content leads the list of qualities we'll judge. Please a link and a minimum of 3 issues for judging.
• Best Email Pitch: As PR moves away from the traditional paper press release, reporters’ email inboxes are getting bombarded. Did your company create an email pitch that garnered an unusually large amount of attention? What made your email pitch magical?
• Best Facebook Page: Facebook is a critical part of nearly every organization or client's content and marketing strategy. Again, lay out your content and PR/marketing strategy and show us the results. We want to see it all.
• Best Location-Based Campaign: Did you target a particular geographic region and blow the competition out of the water? Tell us how you understood the market at the ground level and got results. Detail what you did, how you implanted it, and what you accomplished.
• Best Mobile Strategy and/or Campaign: Mobile access is exploding! Show us your mobile strategy and campaigns, or those of your clients. We're looking for ease of use, clever and engaging ideas and applications and—oh yes—results!
• Best Online Newsroom: Show us how your company has changed the way it views the dissemination of information in the age of Tweets, blogs, Facebook statuses and Check-Ins. How has your content for your client changed in the transition from a traditional news room to an online news room? Please include a link or multiple screenshots with your entry.
• Best Podcast: Have you created a podcast for your client or company—one that entertains, informs and raises the visibility of the organization? We want to hear it.
• Best PR Video: Video is the perfect medium for a pitch—it is visually stimulating, short and, if done with flair, can really capture attention and set you apart from your competitors. Did you keep your audience in mind when you sent out these video pitches—perhaps even personalizing them? Wow us!
• Best Social Media Campaign: Here's your opportunity to show us a digital campaign you've created for your organization or client. We'll be looking at everything—content, social media integration, and results. What were your goals and how did you measure them? Put it all in the tightly written synopsis when you submit your entry.
• Best Tweet of the Year: It's only 140 characters, but the right tweet can produce amazing outcomes. It can drive traffic to your organization or client's website, it can raise awareness about a campaign and send it viral, and it can alert the media to a major story you're pitching. Send us a tweet along with your synopsis showing us the results. Please include a screenshot of the tweet if you have it.
• Best Use of SEO: There are few things more important to an organization or client than Search Engine Optimization. Show us how you moved your website or microsite up page rankings through a sustained SEO campaign. What was the 'before' and what was the 'after'?
• Best Use of Twitter: Twitter is an amazing tool for PR pros and their clients or companies. Twitter can help you build a following for your client or organization, handle a crisis or even deliver news. We'll look at your strategy and the content of your feed. Be sure to tell us how you've measured the results.
• Best Viral or Word of Mouth Campaign: The creators of most viral videos have no intention of their skyrocketing to astronomical amounts of exposure. Whether you created a client video knowing it had potential to see seven digits’ worth of views, or created one hoping to get a few hundred bites, we want to see it. Statistics are always great to see.
• Best Website Launch: Have you launched a new website for a client or your organization that has you bursting with pride? Send us the link and support your case for its blow-your-socks-off greatness. We'll be looking at design and presentation, content, of course, and simple, clear navigation. If this is a re-launch, please include documentation of the previous site.

Annual Report

• Best Annual Report (Online): Many companies are trimming budgets and relying instead on electronic annual reports. We want to see them, too. And this is the perfect category for submitting through our easy online portal. Please include a link to the report or a full PDF.
• Best Annual Report (Print): What could be more important to your company or your client than the annual report? If done intelligently, it can reveal the very heart and soul of an organization while imparting key information to stakeholders, employees and analysts. Be sure to check our mailing instructions below to send us a hard copy.

Branding and Marketing

• Best Branding Campaign: Did you have an especially clever inspiration for your company’s product or services? Let us see it, please! Whether you built a brand from scratch or revamped a brand to look new, we’re more than interested. We want to jump on your bandwagon. If this is a re-brand, we would love to see the previous branding and hear it’s weaknesses.
• Best Cause-Related Marketing: Show us how you've promoted a single cause using clever and engaging PR. This could include a video, an event, a website or microsite, or an online or print communication.
• Best Content Marketing/Brand Journalism: Content marketing and brand journalism is a huge trend in B2B public relations and marketing today. Show us your best work for a client or your company that used news and information to boost brand reputation and engender loyalty among your customers or prospects. These devices can range from online newsletters to video channels and print publications. Please include a link and multiple screenshots for appropriate materials.
• Best Event Marketing: As you know, an event can be extremely well-put together but flop because of bungled publicity. That's where your superior effort comes in. Did you use social media, as well as traditional communications? Please share!

Community Relations/Special Campaigns

• Best Community Relations Campaign: Did you take a particular community service initiative under your wing? We want to see everything you produced: newspaper and magazine ads, posters, white papers, op-eds, letters to the editor, radio and TV advertising, direct mailings—all of it.
• Best Corporate Social Responsibility: Customers want to know your company is socially responsible. What have you done to spread this message and improve your organization or client's reputation?
• Best Fitness/Health Campaign: Did you engage in a campaign to bring awareness to a health or fitness issue? No matter how small or large-scale, we would like to see it!
• Best Green Initiative: This is one corporate fad that’s not going away. It’s a fact that U. S. corporations set the example for the rest of the world. We want to hear in detail what your company has done to green itself, its workers and its community.

Talent

• Best Client of the Year: PR agencies have great clients and—let's face it—the 'client from Hell.' Use your synopsis to show us why your favorite client deserves this award. The winner will be a client who shows realistic expectations; contributes great ideas to the PR campaign; helps the agency execute ideas efficiently and cleverly. Give your amazing client the recognition they deserve!
• Best PR Team: It's a great feeling when your in-house PR team fires on all cylinders. The winning entry will show how the team worked together to pull off amazing campaigns, responded to crises and managed the Herculean task of delivering content to Twitter, Facebook and traditional media. We would love to see a team photo.
• Lifetime Achievement Award: Enter a colleague at your organization or agency who has demonstrated a long career of excellence in PR. Use your synopsis to persuade us of his or her amazing capabilities, management style and innovative leadership are extraordinary. Please include a photo.
• PR Rookie of the Year (Agency or Corporate): Know a PR Pro with two years or less under their belt? Submissions can come from colleagues or managers. Use the synopsis to make your case. Be sure to include stories and achievements to win over the judges. Please include a photo.

Grand Prize

• Best PR Campaign of the Year: This is the big one. Submit your most successful campaign of 2012. Our judges will look at everything from your mission and goals, your strategy and tactics—and, of course, results! Winners in this grand prize category will be awarded 5 free registrations to any Ragan Communications conference in 2013 or 2014.