Healthy competition at the 2011 Sony awards

Little by little, year by year, the Sony Radio Academy Awards become more welcoming to promotions and imaging professionals.

This year there are five categories geared directly to marketing, promotions and station sound. The “best use of multiplatform” award could also be fertile territory for promotional campaigns.

You’ll see from the nominees announced last night that both BBC and commercial radio have performed well in promotions, marketing and imaging categories.

It’s important that all broadcasters have strengths in these areas since effective promotional work is what helps listeners find, choose and enjoy the wonderful range of radio content available in the UK. Creative promotional work is in good health across the industry and that bodes well for radio as a whole, its advertisers and its listeners.

I’ll invite the nominees of the station imaging category (Absolute, BBC 5 Live, TalkSPORT, Capital and Kiss) and best campaign (Absolute, BBC 5 Live, TalkSPORT, Capital and Fresh Air Production / BBC) onto the Earshot Creative Review podcast in due course to play and discuss their work but for now have a listen to the shortlisted entries in the Best Single Promo or Commercial category.

The smallest station nominated has a weekly audience of 130,000, the largest reaches 42 million. Two shortlisted entries are from commercial radio, one from an ad agency and a couple from the BBC.

MFR Christmas Toy Appeal 2010: Moray Firth Radio.
Seldom have heartstrings been tugged so hard.

[audio:http://earshotcreative.com/audio/sony/mfr_santa.mp3|titles=”MFR Christmas Appeal 2010 – Moray Firth Radio”]

BBC Proms: BBC World Service
A mashup of classical music by producer Ben Motley.

[audio:http://earshotcreative.com/audio/sony/bbc_proms.mp3|titles=”BBC Proms – BBC World Service”]

Eastenders: BBC Radio Cross Trails / Red Bee Media
Eastenders sense of humour shock.

[audio:http://earshotcreative.com/audio/sony/eastenders.mp3|titles=”Eastenders – BBC Radio Cross Trails / Red Bee Media”]

Summertime Ball mashup: 95.8 Capital FM
A showcase of the hit artists Capital plays every day. Actually every hour.

[audio:http://earshotcreative.com/audio/sony/capital_summertime.mp3|titles=”Capital’s Summertime Ball Mashup – 95.8 Capital FM”]

The Haunting Sounds of the Vuvuzela: JWT London / Capital FM
A topical execution of a famous campaign.

[audio:http://earshotcreative.com/audio/sony/kitkat.mp3|titles=”The Haunting Sounds of the Vuvuzela – JWT for Capital FM”]

Congratulations to all nominees. The winners are announced on 9 May.

Photograph: Finish LIne by cole24_, on Flickr, used under licence