Pearl Awards 2014 winners have been announced! Aude won the silver pearl for ING Bank Śląski CSR report in the category: Best Special Issue, and two gold pearls for Netia magazine for employees “@mazing” in the category: Best Cover B2B and Best Tie-in with corporate integrated marketing campaign.

“Thanks so much for your commitment and enthusiasm” commented Anita Buczkowska, senior communications specialist, ING Bank Śląski, who supported us in developing the report. Enthusiasm is a crucial word in this project – we were enthusiastic about the challenge of creating a brave and original graphic design, the bank reacted enthusiastically to our unconventional attitude to reporting. “We wanted the report to encourage readers, hence its short texts and simple language. But it was Aude’s contribution to present such a great amount of data in such an elegant way,” Anita summarized. As a result, ING Bank Śląski received its first American pearl (following honorable mentions in Szpalty Roku and Raporty Społeczne competitions).

“More than 500 applications from 7 continents, and we have been noticed! Two gold awards is really something, especially when we take into consideration there was no division this year to the categories: internal vs external communication, which means our magazine for employees was judged together with publications by the largest publishing houses in the world! Two gold pearls, for the best cover and the best marketing strategy, this is really @mazing!” said Magda Bugajło of communications in Netia right after the awarding gala.

Click on the covers, if you want to see magazine.

“ING – the Art of Responsibility. ING Bank Śląski S.A. Corporate Social Responsibility Report 2011–2012” is the first CSR report published by ING. Working on the concept of the publication we had two assumptions in mind: first, we wanted the report to fit the bank’s CSR policy. For many years the bank has been supporting young Polish artists with its Polish Art Foundation. We decided the whole publication – both its content and images – should relate to art. This lead us to our second key principle: the report should have an art-like character, so all drawings and subtitles were hand-made by a Warsaw Fine Arts Academy graduate, art director Marcin Rutkowski. These were all painted on paper with ink, giving a unique character to the publication. The report has already gained recognition: in the Social Reports Competition organised by the Responsible Business Forum, PwC and SGS it won the best debut title 2013, it was also listed as one of the Top Ten CSR Reports of 2013 (csr-reporting.blogspot.co.il). The Jury in New York awarded the report in a very broad category  – Best Special Issue – where it competed with outstanding special issues of all kinds.

“@mazing” magazine for Netia employees has been noticed on the other side of the globe already for the third time. This year, it received two Golden Pearls – in the categories Best Cover and Best Tie-in with corporate integrated marketing campaign, the latter being particularly important, as the nomination is for a campaign promoting the company’s new advertising claim: GIGAFREEDOM.
It was a huge (or giga in the IT nomenclature) challenge to find the means to define GIGAFREEDOM not limiting it at the same time. Read more about GIGAFREEDOM in our article.

The Pearl Awards ceremony was held on November 11 in New York – we are very glad to see more pearls in our collection, which already includes nine exhibits!