SAVE THE DATE FOR THE AWARDS CELEBRATION

Wednesday, December 6th at OTR Stillhouse!

Recognizing Marketing Excellence in Cincinnati

The AMA Cincinnati Pinnacle Awards ara a highlight of our chapter year and our chance to recognize, reward, and celebrate regional excellence in marketing. Now that our program is aligned with the winter holidays in December, we have even more reason to celebrate together. 

This year, the festivities will include a new twist, as ALL finalists will be leaving with a ranked trophy. We’ve also tweaked and added new categories, so be sure to review the options carefully and nominate your best and brightest!

Watch for announcements about the date and location of the party, but start working on your nominations TODAY! October, or “Submission Season” as we call it, will go FAST! The process is easy, and the deadline is EXTENDED to October 31st – but that’s the absolute latest, no exceptions! Scroll down for much more info.  Good luck!!!

Affiliate Your Brand with Marketing Excellence

Want to connect your brand to top marketing talent in Cincinnati? Consider supporting this program and event as a sponsor or partner. Contact partnerships@amacincinnati.org to explore the opportunity!

2023 Pinnacle Awards Schedule

  • October 2 – October 31: Nomination period.
  • Late October: Submissions are distributed to OTHER AMA CHAPTERS across the country for judging and scoring.
  • November: Finalists revealed. ALL Finalists are WINNERS! 
  • December: Pinnacle Awards ceremony and holiday celebration where Legends and Category Awards are Revealed.

AMA Cincinnati Pinnacle Awards Ceremony & Holiday Party

We’re filled with excitement to bring the Pinnacle Awards to our community of marketers within the Greater Cincinnati area! We’re working behind the scenes to ensure a fun-filled celebration for our winners, and marketing community!

  • When: December 2023
  • Where: TBD

Interested in helping plan and execute this festive shindig? Contact pinnacle@amacincinnati.org

2023 Pinnacle Award Categories & Descriptions

Categories

Best Collegiate/Student Marketing Plan, Campaign, and/or Program

Calling all students! Many have term papers, projects or capstone courses that require the creation of a marketing plan, campaign, and an extent of execution. Share your work with us to be recognized! Please include results on any execution of the marketing plan.

Best Brand Launch or Rebranding Effort

Cincinnati is Brand Capital, USA. Whether you’re a startup or a decades-old company going through a turnaround or rebirth, share your brand or rebrand process with us–from old versus new, graphics, messaging, rollout, and education. Oh, and don’t forget applicable metrics!

Best Content Marketing

Valuable. Relevant. Consistent. Helpful content creation and distribution have become the foundation of successful marketing programs. Whether it’s blogs and white papers or podcasts or videos, share with us how your brand tells a story and sparks engagement with intended audiences.

Best Digital Strategy & Execution

The Best Digital Strategy & Execution award recognizes excellence in crafting and implementing digital marketing campaigns, both paid and unpaid, that drive outstanding results. Showcase your innovative and effective use of digital channels, data-driven insights, technical know-how, and creative tactics to achieve marketing objectives and engage target audiences.

Best Customer Experience and/or  Sales Enablement Execution

When marketing and sales work together, everyone wins, but that journey can have hurdles of the organizational, technological, or philosophical kind. Share with us your organization’s sales enablement and CX journey, including goals, results, and creative solutions.

Best Scrappy Marketing Campaign

Are you a non-profit operating your marketing initiatives on a shoestring? New manager in a large organization trying to build a business case for something new and fighting for every budget dollar? Startup with lean funds to promote your new business? We want to see what you accomplished! Tell us what you had to work with, how you tackled the creative challenge of getting the most bang for your frugal buck, and how far it went in the end.

Best “Non-Marketing” Marketing Program

Marketers wear many hats, and sometimes that means stepping out of some disciplines and into different ones like internal communications, employee relations or recruitment, or community involvement, to name a few. Share your best “non-marketing” marketing and how it drove value for the organization.

The Best Product Launch

Celebrates the art and science of introducing a new product to the world. It recognizes marketers who have executed exceptional strategies and tactics to create buzz, anticipation, and successful market entry for a product. This accolade honors creativity, market understanding, and the ability to make a splash in the competitive landscape during a product launch.

Legends, Rising Stars, and Pinnacle Moments

Cincinnati Marketing Legends (CML)

This prestigious award is like a “lifetime achievement” award; it is not time-bound. Who has made a lasting impact and brought acclaim to the city or the profession of marketing? Nominate your most inspiring leaders and icons. Learn more and see past recipients.

Cincinnati Marketing Rising Stars (CMRS)

The Cincinnati Marketing Rising Stars Award is like a high-five for awesome young marketing professionals under 35. It’s all about celebrating their cool marketing skills, killer campaigns, and their impact on the industry. This year will mark the FIRST class of Cincinnati Marketing Rising Stars. Who will it be?

Pinnacle Moments in Cincinnati Marketing

The Pinnacle Moments in Cincinnati Marketing are the ones that stand out above and beyond a campaign or strategy. They take on a life of their own, like those we’ve recognized in the past:

  • The sensational Fritz and Fiona at the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Gardens
  • The rapid-fire launch and crowd-sourced growth of the Hearty platform
  • The phenomenon that is BLINK
  • The spectacular launch and rise of FC Cincinnati

We don’t have an entry form for the Moments that Mattered and the 2023 Pinnacle Moment, but we want to hear from you with your thoughts on what they are! Contact pinnacle@amacincinnati.org and/or tag AMA Cincinnati on social media to shout out your favorites from the past year.

How to Prepare & Submit

Prepare Your Submission

For all categories except the “Cincinnati Marketing Legends* and “Cincinnati Rising Stars” submissions must be accompanied by a summary describing the below points. Please keep the summary concise!

  • 2-3 Sentence Summary or “Elevator Pitch” of Nomination
  • 500 Words or Less for Each Section Below:
    • Opportunity / Problem: Provide a brief situation analysis of the opportunity or problem your marketing work addressed.
    • Objectives: What were you trying to achieve? Who were your target audiences? What did success look like? Don’t forget KPIs and SMART Goals!
    • Planning & Execution: How did you make it happen?
    • Results: Did you achieve your goals and objectives? Did your initial vision of success come to fruition? Don’t forget KPIs and SMART Goals!

Supporting Materials

We highly recommend including relevant supporting materials to accompany the summary. As we see submissions come in, judges may recommend adding special categories to recognize excellence in individual campaign components, so show us what you’ve got! These supporting materials can be any of the following:

  • Final creative proofs or examples
  • Multimedia: Photos, videos, audio files, etc.
  • Printed collateral (saved as a PDF)
  • Social media posts and/or metrics
  • Measurement documents
  • Testimonials or letters of recognition
  • Relevant website links for reference
  • Or… surprise us!

How to Submit

We’ve streamlined your award submission and Cincinnati Marketing Legend/Rising Star nomination experience to allow you to spend your brain power on the good stuff. What are you waiting for? Start your submission.

General Rules & Information

Eligibility

The Pinnacle Awards are open to all marketing professionals in the Greater Cincinnati area. Those who submit for an award must submit original work or work they directly supervised. The work submitted must have been created/executed from July 1, 2022, up until June 30, 2023.

It is required to pay submission fees at the time of submitting materials. Work submitted without payment will not be judged and therefore will not be eligible for an award.

Submission Requirements

Category Entries: A summary and payment are required; supporting materials are highly recommended. See the below section, “How to Submit,” for instructions.

Cincinnati Marketing Legends and Rising Stars: These only need basic information on you and your nominee. There is no fee for these. Although supporting materials are not required, we highly encourage a thoughtful pitch for why this individual has earned the distinction, in your opinion.

Judging

Pinnacle submissions will be judged by an American Marketing Association chapter outside of the Cincinnati region. Finalists will be notified in advance of the Awards Ceremony, and ALL finalists are winners! We will announce 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place winners at the Awards Ceremony.

Fees & Payment

  • Standard Submission Fee – $75 per nomination
  • Member Rate – $50 per nomination
  • Non-Profit Fee – $25 per nomination
  • Collegiate/Student Fee – $25 per nomination
  • Cincinnati Marketing Legends and Rising Stars Nomination Fee – $0

Deadlines

Submissions must be sent and payment must be received by 11:59 p.m. EDT on Tuesday, October 31, 2023.

Questions, or interested in volunteering?

Contact Pinnacle@AMACincinnati.org or Kathy@AMACincinnati.org.