Key Plans and Initiatives for Big Apple Awards 2018

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Doug Simon, CEO of D S Simon Media and President-Elect of PRSA’s New York chapter, spoke with Sarah Katz, Senior Vice President at D S Simon Media and Senior Director for the 2018 Big Apple Awards, about this year’s show. Two main areas of focus for this year’s awards include giving the winners a platform to grow their businesses and advance their own careers along with increasing diversity and inclusion across the board.

“Well, we’re going to have some top speakers from different organizations, both from the public relations industry as well as other businesses and organizations, to demonstrate how the power of diversity and inclusion not only is the right thing to do, but it helps you do well. It actually improves business goals and business objectives.” – Doug Simon on how diversity and inclusion will be integrated into the 2018 Big Apple Awards.

Full transcript below:
SARAH KATZ: Hi. I’m Sarah Katz, Senior Vice President at D S Simon Media, and I’m also the 2018 Senior Director for the Big Apple Awards for PRSA New York.
DOUG SIMON: And I’m Doug Simon, CEO here at D S Simon Media and President-Elect of the Public Relations Society of America’s New York chapter.
SARAH KATZ: And we’re here to tell you a little bit about what we’re planning for Big Apple, and what’s different this year. So Doug, start us off.
DOUG SIMON: Sure. A key difference this year is the Big Apple Awards are going to be focused on helping the winners advance their careers and build business for their organizations and help them achieve their key business objectives.
SARAH KATZ: And I know one of the big missions of the chapter overall is diversity and inclusion this year. So how are you going to integrate that into the awards as well?
DOUG SIMON: Sure. Well, we’re going to have some top speakers from different organizations, both from the public relations industry as well as other businesses and organizations, to demonstrate how the power of diversity and inclusion not only is the right thing to do, but it helps you do well. It actually improves business goals and business objectives. Now Sarah, you’ve introduced a number of new categories to the awards program.
SARAH KATZ: Yeah. So some of the new categories we’re introducing are targeted marketing to millennials, marketing to boomers, and also expanding on corporate social responsibility. Some other categories where we’ve seen a lot of growth in different tactics within the industry, and something else that we’re doing is reorganizing the different categories into larger groups to make it more appealing for sponsors to participate and be able to sponsor entire categories, incorporate their messaging into presenting the awards.
DOUG SIMON: And finally, you’ve introduced a new category of awards to honor New York’s top in the world media industry.
SARAH KATZ: Yeah. So we’re really excited about these new media categories. We have top print and broadcast for New York market, as well as the top PR trade and the top PR blogger. So we’re looking forward to seeing them all battle it out at the awards.
DOUG SIMON: That’ll be awesome, and we look forward to seeing you and seeing your great entries. You represent the best of the best, and we’re proud to have the opportunity to honor you.