TREVOSE, PA – March 27, 2009 - The Advertising Specialty Institute®, the largest media and marketing organization serving the advertising specialty industry, announced today that Counselor® magazine won its third Jesse H. Neal National Business Journalism Award for editorial excellence.

The Neal Awards are the most prestigious national awards in business publishing.

Counselor was selected winner of the category “Best News Coverage” for its series of online and print stories covering the fall of industry Top 40 distributor CorpLogoWare.  Counselor editor Andrew Cohen wrote the winning series.  Judges called the entry “amazing work.”
 
“This is our third consecutive win at the Neal Awards, and reflects our strong commitment to independence, objectivity and overall excellence in publishing,” said Timothy M. Andrews, president and chief executive officer of ASI.  “The real winners are our readers, who are served daily on the web, in video, in person and in print with original reporting, editorial insights and educational material to help them make smarter, better decisions.”

Publications from ASI were included among other nationally-recognized magazines entering the contest, such as Advertising Age, Brandweek, Computerworld and Financial Week.  ASI also won a Neal Award last year for Counselor’s State of the Industry issue.  

In addition to Counselor, ASI’s Stitches magazine was one of three finalists in the Neal Awards category of best how-to article or subject-related series of how-to articles.  Nicole Rollender is the magazine’s editor, and the nomination was for an ongoing feature series called “Business Spotlight: The Next Level.”  Stitches competed with entries from Hearst (publisher of O, The Oprah Magazine), among others.

More than 26,000 ASI distributors and decorators use ASI’s editorial resources each day to learn about the latest industry news, case studies, promotional products information and industry-leading education opportunities.  Counselor magazine has over 13,500 subscribers, including 1,000 issues delivered digitally.

ASI’s magazines have won nine nationally-recognized writing, reporting and design awards, including its three Jesse H. Neal Awards.  Counselor also ranked No. 1 in ad pages for 2008 among all business-to-business magazines, as cited by min’s b2b magazine.
 
Established in 1955, the Neal Awards recognize and reward editorial excellence in business media publications.  The awards are considered the industry’s most prestigious and sought-after editorial honors.  The entries are judged by a panel of journalism experts assembled by American Business Media (ABM), and the winners were announced on March 19 in New York City.

For more information about any of ASI’s six magazines, contact Rich Fairfield, publisher and senior vice president, at rfairfield@asicentral.com.  To view the full list of winners, click here, and to learn more about the Neal Awards, click here.

About ASI 
Advertising Specialty Institute is the largest media and marketing organization serving the advertising specialty industry, with a membership of over 26,000 distributor firms (sellers) and supplier firms (manufacturers) of advertising specialties.  Supplier firms use ASI print and electronic resources to market products to over 22,000 ASI distributor firms.  Distributor firms use ASI print and electronic resources, which contain nearly every product in the industry from more than 3,500 reputable suppliers, to locate supplier firms and to market services to buyers.  ASI provides catalogs, information directories, newsletters, magazines, websites and databases, and offers e-commerce, marketing and selling tools.  Visit asicentral.com.

Contact

Dawn Marie,
Executive director of corporate communications

Email industry news and press releases to Chris Ruvo, Digital News Director and Promogram Editor at cruvo@asicentral.com

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