CommPRO Editorial Staff

PR News and CommPRO will celebrate the innovative and creative financial communications campaigns and people behind them through the first annual Finnie Awards. This program is open to all agency, corporation, nonprofit/association and government organizations. The entry deadline is August 4.

Enter the Finnies at www.prnewsonline.com/the-finnies17.

Finnie Award categories include:

Top IR StrategyWe will award the companies that demonstrate the most effective overall strategy and best practices, including planning, execution and measureable results.

• Large Cap - $10 Billion
• Mid Cap - $2-10 Billion
• Small Cap - $300 Million - $2 Billion
• Micro Cap - $50 - $300 Million

Top IPO IRWe’re looking for the team that successfully navigated the difficult and complex process of taking a company public. Tell us how you handled the highly restrictive pre-IPO “quiet period” and the crazy day of the IPO and ensuing “lock-up period.”Most Innovative IRThis award goes to the team/firm that demonstrates the most innovative approach to executing in IR strategy in the digital age, dealing with disclosure, investor/analyst relations and shareholder activism.Top Social Media IRThis award goes to the team/firm that demonstrates the most effective use of multiple social media platforms to execute on IR strategy and communicate with investors, analysts and relevant press.Top Corporate GovernanceThis award goes to the company that demonstrates best practices in balancing the interests of their many stakeholders, including investors, management, customers, suppliers, financiers, government and the community. How well is their corporate philosophy designed, spelled out, communicated and acted on?Top ReportingThis award goes to the company who demonstrates the most effective and innovative reporting, including disclosure, analyst and investor relations and BOD reports.SectorsThis award goes to the top IR efforts of companies in individual sectors, including IR strategy, reporting, website and governance. Sectors: Consumer, FinTech, Healthcare, Financials, Industrials, Energy, Telecom, Utilities, MaterialsTop Investor EventThis award goes to the company with the most well executed investor event, including earnings calls and interviews, conferences and shareholder meetings. Give us examples of how your event(s) stood above the rest, drew crowds and created buzz.Top IR WebsiteIs your IR website the go-to destination for investors, analysts and other stakeholders to keep up with what’s going on at your firm? Are you using best practices that are the envy of your peers? This award goes to the site with the best design, most effective organization and top analytics.Top Crisis ManagementThis award goes to the team who demonstrates the best and most effective execution of IR strategy during a time of corporate crisis.Financial Communications PlanThis award goes to the company who demonstrates the most effective and innovative FinComm Plan, including demonstration of the effectiveness of the processes and structures governing which information was provided and how individual units acted together through to final disclosure.Top Annual ReportDid your team produce an award-worthy Annual Report? Tell us what makes your report stand out from the rest, from layout, design and interactivity to the nuts and bolts of the numbers.Top Marketing in a Crowdfunding CampaignDid your team execute a successful Crowdfunding campaign? How did you market it? Tell us how your marketing efforts broke through the noise of competing campaigns and helped your company reach its funding goals? You may be the Top Campaign of the year.Most Innovative Crowdfunding ProgramThis award goes to the firm that faced significant challenges in the Crowdfunding market and came up with the most unique and innovative solutions to rise above the challenges to reach your funding goals.Top FinTech LaunchDid you launch a FinTech product or service this year? We want to know about it. This award goes to the company with the most well executed launch. What did your team do to make it a successful launch, including marketing, investor messaging, PR and advertising?Most Effective FinComm Content Marketing CampaignThis award goes to the firm that produced content that got the market's attention. Tell us about your process for creating, marketing and measuring the results of your content efforts.Top Online Investor Relations CenterThis award goes to the best Online Investor Relations Center. Tell us what you do to make your center the destination for investors and others looking for information about your company. What makes your center stand out form the crowd?Financial Communications PlanEntries should include as many details as possible of a specific strategic financial communications plan. The details should give a full picture of the goals, development and implementation of the plan, as well as measures of success.Financial Communications CampaignThe top campaign will have clear, stated, measurable goals and results that prove that the financial communications plan exceeded those goals. Positive media coverage and/or positive investor reactions resulting from the campaign will be factors.Press ReleaseDid your press release demonstrably change media perceptions of an issue tied to your organization’s financial circumstances? Include your press release with your entries, as well as links to resulting coverage and any metrics indicating how widely read and shared the press release was.NewsroomIndicate with metrics how your brand’s newsroom met the needs of financial journalists and/or investors, and show year-to-year growth in referral traffic from your online newsroom.Analyst RelationsDemonstrate with specific examples how you have developed positive working relationships with research analysts and how those relationships have resulted in positive media messages about your organization. Materials and content used in specific analyst briefings are encouraged.M&A CommunicationsEntries should be specific about a particular challenge faced by a team communicating a merger or acquisition, and how that team successfully met that challenge.View the full category list at www.prnewsonline.com/the-finnies17#categories.A panel of corporate, agency and academic executives will judge entries. Winners will be selected based on how they met their goals and strategic objectives. Other factors include creativity, innovation, sound planning and implementation. Winners will be celebrated at an awards luncheon in New York City in November.The same Finnie Award submission can be placed in multiple categories at a discount of $275.To submit an entry or for additional information, visit www.prnewsonline.com/the-finnies17. For questions regarding The Finnie Awards, contact PR News’ Awards Coordinator, Mary-Lou French at mfrench@accessintel.com.