Marketing Week to back the MRS Awards

Marketing Week is joining forces with the Market Research Society (MRS) to build the MRS Awards into the premier research industry benchmark of excellence and effectiveness.

The aim of the initiative is to combine the best elements of previous award schemes with a more rigorous concern for commercial performance, innovation, originality and analytical insight.

The awards ceremony will take place in London on Tuesday, November 25 – the first night of the Research Show. This is considered the best-attended annual event in the research industry.

The awards categories will be judged by a carefully balanced panel comprising representatives of leading organisations that commission market research, as well as planners and top research company executives.

“This event will put market research awards on the map. The awards bring together the leading market research association with the leading marketing publication for the first time,” says Stuart Smith, editor of Marketing Week.

“Marketing Week has already established a reputation for supporting several successful awards schemes based on effectiveness. We see backing the MRS in extending these awards as the next logical step,” he adds.

David Barr, director-general of the MRS, says: “We were delighted in 2002 to gain the support of Marketing Week as sponsor and media partner for our excellence awards. Marketing Week has supported, sponsored and publicised the industry’s research effectiveness awards for many years. It makes sense to bring these together and to reinvest in one annual awards ceremony in London, timed to coincide with the Research Show.”

He adds: “These awards are truly impartial, because neither judging nor sponsorship will be dominated by any sector of the industry.”