C&EN wins EXCEL Awards

Last week the C&EN team was in for a treat: We received six awards (two gold, one silver, two bronze, and an Emerging Leader Award) at the prestigious Association Media & Publishing EXCEL Awards gala.

The AM&P EXCEL Awards are an annual occurrence that traditionally takes place at the end of June to coincide with AM&P’s annual conference in Washington, D.C. The event is a must attend for us: It brings together several hundred communications professionals from nonprofit, association, and alumni publishing organizations around the country to discuss trends and best practices while at the same time providing a wonderful opportunity to network and connect with like-minded individuals.

We were hopeful—at least I was—that we’d be able to bring home one trophy, as a few weeks earlier we’d heard that C&EN had been short-listed in five categories. The gala went beyond our expectations, and we received an award in each of the categories where our work had been short-listed. The list is as follows:

▸ Digital Media, Video (Education) for the 2017 Nobel Prize in Chemistry video “Cryo-Electron Microscopy Explained”: Bronze. Senior Editor of Multimedia Matt Davenport contributed this Speaking of Chemistry video, edited by Executive Editor Lauren Wolf, as part of our exhaustive coverage of the 2017 Nobel Prizes. The video turned out to be a “best seller” for us, generating more than 100,000 views on our Facebook and YouTube channels.

▸ Magazine, Cover, Illustration for “The Microbiome Comes to Cosmetics”: Silver.Art Director Yang H. Ku created the striking and attention-grabbing cover inspired by the work of American pop artist Roy Lichtenstein to illustrate an annual feature on the latest advancements in the cosmetics field.

▸ Magazine, Feature Article (100,000 or More) for “Supporting Mental Health”: Gold. This superbly written and thoughtful piece by Executive Editor Jyllian Kemsley, also edited by Lauren, tackled the issues surrounding graduate student mental health and suicide and what tools and practices schools can put in place to support this community of early-career chemists. The highly sensitive feature struck a chord with many members of the scientific community.

▸ Promotional Content, Advertisement, Single Piece (Other) for C&EN BrandLab’s “New Technology Promises Greener Chemistry”: Bronze. This sponsored piece was produced by our custom content studio, C&EN BrandLab, on behalf of advertising partner IKA. It was the work of Raj Mukhopadhyay, executive editor of C&EN BrandLab, who managed a compelling piece to support the launch of a new product in the electrochemistry space.

▸ Promotional Content, Media Kit (Digital) for C&EN: Gold. Our media kit is a set of promotional information about C&EN that is used by our sales team to provide potential and existing advertisers with information about our advertising products and services. Senior Marketing Manager Sondra Hadden delighted the judges with C&EN’s 2017 media kit.

We are very proud to have received an award in each of these five categories. The icing on the cake was that, in addition to the five awards, C&EN’s audience engagement editor, Dorea Reeser, was also recognized with an Emerging Leader Award. This accolade honors up-and-coming association publishing and communications professionals under the age of 35 “who are making a clear impact on their associations and the industry.” Dorea’s vision for C&EN’s social media channels and the collection of newsletters we produce has transformed our approach to audience development and yielded excellent results in terms of deepening engagement with our readers.

Congratulations to Dorea, Matt, Lauren, Yang, Jyllian, Sondra, Raj, and the rest of the individuals at C&EN, without whom this would not have been possible.

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