National Newspapers of Ireland (NNI) has launched a new creative initiative designed to showcase and reward the best ads to appear in the pages of its 18 member newspapers each month.

The inaugural NNI ‘Press Ad of the Month’ competition is open to agencies and (direct) advertisers, with monthly winners and runners-up all qualifying for a tilt as the prestigious ‘Press Ad of the Year’ awards next spring.

Monthly winners will be selected by a judging team consisting of a senior ad agency creative and senior media specialist, with an internationally renowed creative being lined up to judge the annual awards. Judges for the April competition are Emmet Wright, Creative Director of Chemistry, and David Sneddon, Managing Director of Mindshare.

Commenting on the launch of the competition, NNI’s Frank Cullen said the time is right for a high-quality creative advertising awards scheme.

‘Everybody knows how tough things are, and tightening budgets have affected the ad industry as much as any other sector,’ said Mr Cullen. ‘Nevertheless, in the creative business there is no let-up – the clients need to keep advertising, so the creators need to keep coming up with great ideas.

‘We see those ideas being executed on the pages of our newspapers every day,’ Mr Cullen went on ‘Press ads of all shapes and sizes, bold and clever concepts that reach out and engage with our 3.1 million regular readers.

‘We want to do something to honour the brains behind those ads, and thats why we’re launching our ‘Press Ad of the Month’ initiative,’ he said. ‘We think that the competition will be well-received in ad-land, and we hope that it may even stimulate the market in some way,’

NNI has promised ‘significant publicity’ for all monthly awards winners, with the added incentive of qualification for the NNI ‘Press Ad of the Year’ event next spring.

‘Our monthly awards will build up an outstanding body of work to compete in the ‘Press Ad of the Year’ event,’ said NNI’s Frank Cullen. ‘We hope that will become a high-calibre annual event capable of demonstrating the unique power of press advertising.’

More information about the NNI ‘Press Ad of the Month’ awards including online entry form are available here.