By Wanda Kenton Smith, MMA President
I wanted to take this opportunity to congratulate all of the 2017 Neptune Award Winners for their outstanding contributions! No doubt, this was our best year overall in terms of the volume and the quality of submissions. Several of the categories were hotly contested and the results speak to the broad level of superior work contributed by marketers in all segments of our business.
I also wanted to thank our colleagues at Boating Writers International for their willingness to collaborate with us on joint programming at Miami. While we recognized our top marketers, BWI held their annual BWI Writing Awards Program. Having the best marketers and writers gathered together to celebrate outstanding achievements made for a truly memorable event.
I must take this opportunity to thank the MMA Board and our administrator Matt Kuka for all the hard work behind the scenes. Chief Judge Sally Helme, Judging Chair Kristin Frohnhoefer, event publicist Jim Rhodes and scores of others participated in the judging activity. It is our major effort of the year and it takes the entire village to make it happen. Thanks to everyone who contributed!
Having served as a judge myself for the past several years in categories where I wasn’t competing, I do have one recommendation to share. There is a detailed submission form that clearly specifies the judging criteria and applicants should be sure to provide all the requested information. There were a handful of really nice entries who scored poorly because their submissions were simply incomplete.
A very special thanks to Ron Ballanti for handling the photography of our winners during the event!
If you missed the boat and didn’t see the list of winning entries, please
click here
on our new website to see the top marketing work in our industry!