ASI Magazines Honored at Prestigious National Neal Awards Ceremony

Counselor, Wearables and SGR magazines cited for journalistic excellence

TREVOSE, PA – April 8, 2016 –Informative stories that inspired readers to create a dream shop, master the digital landscape and gain a competitive advantage earned magazines published by the Advertising Specialty Institute® (ASI) finalist nominations for four Jesse H. Neal National Business Journalism Awards.

Considered “the Pulitzer Prize of business media,” the Neal Awards recognize the best in business-to-business editorial achievement and are B-to-B’s most prestigious and sought-after editorial honors. Connectiv, the Business Information Association, a division of the Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA), the principal trade association for the software and digital content industries, celebrated B-to-B journalism’s best and brightest during its 62nd annual Neal Awards ceremony in New York City.

“I’m very proud of the individual work singled out for honors in the fiercely competitive Neal awards,” said Timothy M. Andrews, president and chief executive officer of ASI. “I’m equally as proud of our entire editorial team for continuing to serve our members exceptionally well with highly regarded, data-rich, action-oriented service journalism that would be the envy of any company.”

Below are the ASI magazines and journalists honored as a Neal Award finalist:

• Theresa Hegel for Best Range of Work by a Single Author. Her entries included social media posts, a video report and a story on decorated-apparel shops that hire autistic and intellectually disabled adults. Hegel (@TheresaHegel) is senior editor of Wearables®magazine, covering screen printing, embroidery, wearable tech and more. She is an award-winning journalist from Emmaus, Pennsylvania, who won two 2015 Neal awards in the categories of Best Range of Work and Best Cross-Platform Package. Most recently, she won two awards, for business and fashion writing, in the 2016 Pennsylvania Press Club Communications Contest.
• Counselor®, “The New Normal,”State of the Industry 2015 issue, for Best Instructional Content, by Editorial Director Andy Cohen, Market Research Director Nate Kucsma, Art Director Hillary Glen, Senior Editorial Designer Glen Karpowich, Managing Editor Joan Chaykin, Theresa Hegel and Contributors Betsy Cummings and Shane Dale. The annual issue highlighted tips, strategies and case studies to help distributors adapt to dramatic ways the Internet is changing the way they do business. Under Cohen’s guidance, ASI magazines have been honored with over 150 journalism awards in the last 10 years, including nine Neal awards. ASI publications are the only industry magazines to ever win a Neal Award.
• Wearables, “Dream Shop,” October 2015 issue, for Best Instructional Content, by Executive Editor C.J. Mittica, Glen Karpowich and Joan Chaykin. In the winning package, Wearables experts and leading equipment companies provided a comprehensive guide for decorators and screen-printers aspiring to create an optimized workplace. Mittica, of Lafayette Hill, Pennsylvania, has been a finalist for three previous Neal awards and won a Neal Award in 2015.
• SGR™, “Intelligence Test,” May-June 2015 issue, for Best Single Article, written by Sara Lavenduski, associate editor for ASI magazines, and edited by Michele Bell, SGR editor and ASI director of editorial operations. The story detailed the strategic benefits of Competitive Intelligence (CI) and ways suppliers are gathering, analyzing and distributing intelligence about products, customers and competitors. Lavenduski (@SaraLav_ASI) is from New Hope, Pennsylvania, and this is her first Neal finalist nomination.
  

   

  A panel of 12 judges reviewed the 184 finalists to select the winners in 21 editorial categories. Leanna Orr, chair of the Neal Awards and managing editor of Asset International said, “This year’s stunning crop of entries proved B2B media’s creative range and technical prowess. But most of all, this group’s body of work made vivid what the Neal Awards have always been about: editorial excellence, for and by masters of their crafts.”

  ASI publishes seven catalogs, four magazines and nine newsletters. ASI’s magazine circulation is audited and growing, and Counselor’s Top 40 and Power 50 lists are now the industry standard.

  To learn more about ASI’s publications, contact Editorial Director Andy Cohen atacohen@asicentral.com. For info on advertising, contact Matt Barnes, ASI’s vice president of publishing and media services, at mbarnes@asicentral.com.

  About ASI
  The Advertising Specialty Institute (ASI®) serves a network of 25,000 suppliers, distributors and decorators in the $22 billion promotional products industry. ASI’s flagship product, the technology platform ESP®, manages the industry’s entire supply and marketing chain. ASI also produces award-winning digital and print content, live events and educational programs that enable companies in 61 countries to be more efficient, productive and profitable. ASI’s Counselor® magazine provides the most authoritative business content in the industry, and the ASI Certification Program features 500+ live and online education courses for over 40,000 professionals. The company, family owned and operated since 1962, is proud to have been consistently ranked among the “Best Places to Work” in Philadelphia and Bucks County, PA. For more info: www.asicentral.com.