DMA Kicks Off 2012 International Echo Awards Competition

February 21, 2012 — The Direct Marketing Association (DMA) today announced that the 2012 International ECHO Awards competition is underway. These prestigious awards honor the world’s outstanding marketing campaigns that demonstrate exceptional creativity, visionary strategy, and results. The awards will be presented at a gala ceremony held October 16 in Las Vegas, Nevada. The Deadline for submissions is April 25, 2012.

This year’s ECHO competition will honor excellence in 12 channels: alternative media, catalog, direct mail, email, mobile, print; search engine marketing, social media, telemarketing, television/video/radio, Web advertising, and Web development.

Winners will be selected in 12 business categories: automotive; business and consumer services; communications and utilities; financial products and services; information technologies; insurance; nonprofit; pharmaceutical and healthcare; product manufacturing and distribution; publishing and entertainment; retail and direct sales; and travel and hospitality/transportation.

Each year, ECHO entries include multichannel campaigns from the US and over 50 countries, including Argentina, Denmark, Germany, Malaysia, New Zealand, Spain, and Sweden. This year’s Awards Ceremony and Gala will be held during The DMA2012 Annual Conference & Exhibition: The Global Event for Real-Time Marketers, October 13-18, at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas. For a full list of last year’s winners, please click here.

In addition to the Gold, Silver, and Bronze EHCO awards, seven special awards will also be presented: the Diamond ECHO; the ECHO Governors Award for Strategic Innovation; the Henry Hoke Award; the Search Marketing Award; the US Postal Service Gold Mailbox Award; and the Green Mailbox Award.

This year, for the first time, the Pitney Bowes Personal Connections ECHO Award will recognize the outstanding use of customer insights to create highly personal and lasting customer relationships. The award evaluates and honors the mutual value created through personal connections, for both the customer and the marketer.

To access the 2012 ECHO Awards entry form, please click here.

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About DMA’s International ECHO Awards

Introduced in 1929 as the “Best in Direct Mail” contest, the DMA International ECHO Awards honor excellence in creativity, marketing strategy, and response results in direct marketing campaigns. With over 1,000 entries submitted by direct response agencies worldwide, DMA’s annual ECHO Awards recognize every type of media used in direct and interactive marketing campaigns.

For more information about the International ECHO Awards, which will be presented October 16, 2012 during the DMA2012 Conference and Exhibition, please visit www.dma-echo.org. To register, or for additional information about DMA2012, please click here.

About DMA2012 Conference & Exhibition

The DMA2012 Annual Conference & Exhibition: The Global Event for Real-Time Marketers is the world’s largest gathering of cross-media/channel marketing professionals. DMA2012, which will be held October 13-18 in Las Vegas, will feature keynote presentations, educational sessions, roundtables, case studies, white papers, and research reports. DMA2012’s exhibit hall will feature hundreds of exhibiting companies. For additional information, or to register for the six-day multichannel marketing event of the year, please visit http://www.dma12.org.

For information about DMA2012 exhibition and sponsorship opportunities, please contact Kevin Fox at 212.790.1468 or kfox@the-dma.org.

About Direct Marketing Association (DMA)

The Direct Marketing Association (www.the-dma.org) is the world’s largest global trade association of businesses and nonprofit organizations using and supporting multichannel direct marketing tools and techniques. DMA advocates standards for responsible marketing, promotes relevance as the key to reaching consumers with desirable offers, and provides cutting-edge research, education, and networking opportunities to improve results throughout the end-to-end direct marketing process. Founded in 1917, DMA today represents companies from dozens of vertical industries in the US and 48 other nations, including half of the Fortune 100 companies.

In 2012, marketers — commercial and nonprofit —will spend $168.5 billion on direct marketing, which accounts for 52.7 percent of all ad expenditures in the United States. Measured against total US sales, these advertising expenditures will generate approximately $2.05 trillion in incremental sales. In 2012, direct marketing accounts for 8.7 percent of total US gross domestic product and produces1.3 million direct marketing employees in the US. Their collective sales efforts directly support 7.9 million other jobs, accounting for a total of 9.2 million US jobs.

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