The events model: How industry-specific award events benefit magazines

The purpose of this report is to explore the effectiveness of magazine award events and to recommend improvements that will propel such media events to impact the publishing landscape on a greater level. This paper uses Western Living’s Designers of the Year and Vancouver magazine’s Restaurant Awards as case studies to support the concept that award events are a clever and dependable source of non-traditional revenue, free marketing, and proprietary editorial content for such publications. It also critically analyzes the impact that each department—editorial, marketing, and sales—has on planning, executing, and promoting these events in terms of editorial vision, marketing and PR impact, and sales strategy associated with such events. Finally, this paper offers suggestions and recommendations for how award events could be utilized and monetized further.