The marketing and communications team at the Valley Forge Tourism & Convention Board in Pennsylvania, received a number of awards in early June.
Dallas-based Association of Marketing and Communications Professionals doled out the awards, dubbed the Hermes Creative Awards, which are given out based on feedback from marketing and communications experts. The 2015 competition yielded 6,000 entries across the globe.
“[An] interesting aspect of this competition is that the submissions were all done online,” says Harris. “We supplied URLs—not paper entries—that gave the judges open access to our communications. We were never sure exactly when they were visiting, nor specifically what they saw. So the recognition comes almost like a surprise inspection in the military.”
The association gave VFTCB’s website the highest possible distinction—the Platinum award. As part of its 2014 rebranding, the website was completely redesigned. The Platinum award is given out only to the top 15 percent of entrants.
The CVB also earned four Gold awards, which are given out only to 22 percent of entrants. The awards were handed out for the CVB’s Patriot Trails microsite, the website as a whole under the nonprofit category and the blog writing for The Pursuit.
“We are truly honored especially because of the peer-to-peer nature of the competition,” says Edward Harris, vice president of marketing and communications, VFTCB. “The judges for the Hermes Creative Awards looked at our material in the context of entries from individual communicators, media conglomerates and Fortune 500 companies, submitting work from 25 different countries. It is a very prestigious field in which to be recognized.”
