The Alberta Weekly Newspapers Association (AWNA) encourages excellence by sponsoring an annual provincial competition to celebrate the achievements of its member newspapers. Congratulations to the 2020 Awards of Excellence winners in the Ad Campaign category.First Place: Come to Heritage Acres: Shootin’ the Breeze
The newspaper used their own photos to bring life to this series of ads for a local farm museum. That summer they had the highest walk-in attendance ever, despite the limitations of the COVID-19 restrictions and this advertising campaign played a role in that.
“This ad campaign had it all. I could tell it was well thought out in advance. It featured reminders for people to still get out and enjoy some of the local activities despite COVID-19. The 1/4 page size ads were decent, but could have used more space as there was a lot of copy and photos included. Kudos to the editorial team which added a front page photo of one of their events near the end of the campaign.”
Second Place: KC Factory: High Prairie South Peace News
“This is not a unique ad campaign, but nonetheless it grabbed my attention. It was a 1/4 page with the theme changed each time, and a new photo to draw people in. Having the ad on page 3 was an added bonus.”
Third Place: Nutters Power Tuesdays: Jasper Fitzhugh
“This 1/4 page ad campaign was a reminder for all about the monthly sale. The background photos were different for each week, and they were awesome.”
Newspapers compete against other newspapers of similar circulation for special awards in such categories as editorial, photography, advertising and special promotion.
The 2020 BNC Awards of Excellence were presented to winners in an online ceremony, May 2021.
