Awards manager Sue Archibald said the association has made the changes in line with feedback from discussions held with the Pride In Print committee, Awards patrons, sponsors, and printing companies across New Zealand, as well as a Pride In Print survey.
“The lay person does not identify with technical descriptions of processes and press types, but they do understand broad print categories such as ‘newspapers’, ‘books’, ‘magazines’, ‘catalogues’, and ‘fine art prints’,” Archibald said.
“For example, [it is like] comparing ovens used to bake chocolate chip cookies – the buyers care about the taste of the cookie and they don’t worry too much about the production process. For print, the care is in the final look, feel and the ability of the product to be fit for purpose.
“So we are aligning our award categories with what the print buyer and user understands. Customers can grasp that an entry has won the Best Publication, Best Packaging, or Best Business Print category very easily.”
Changes to the Awards format were forecast just last month with the election of Scott Porter to the chairman position, with Porter declaring that the association would “aim to deliver an exclusive event with a gala atmosphere that is also attractive to those not intimately involved in the print process, but [that] are key in making print or packaging buying decisions”.
Indeed, Archibald says the motivation behind the changes is to make the Awards “more meaningful” outside of the industry.
“This will provide opportunities for businesses winning the Awards to better promote their success with their customers,” she said.
It isn’t a complete overhaul, however, with Archibald saying that standards-based judging will remain, and will continue to take into consideration technical aspects such as processes used and degree of difficulty.
“This is another maturing for Pride In Print that will see us explaining our product in a clearer fashion to the general print-buying public,” she said. “It is another step forward on a never-ending pathway of self-improvement.”
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