Dear Colleague,
We are pleased to announce that the winners in the 2009 Gold Standard Awards for public affairs and communications have been announced: with Weber Shandwick taking the top slot in PA consultancy, ING winning in-house PA, and Indonesia's president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono securing the coveted Gold Standard Award for Political Communications.
President Yudhoyono beamed into the event, and his son Edhie Yudhoyono made the trip to Hong Kong to collect the award (pictured above).
The awards, which were hotly contested, will be covered in a full digital briefing on the winning entries which will be circulated on Monday. The latest edition of PublicAffairsAsia magazine, released today, also has a full awards brochure illustrating the winning entries in-depth.
PublicAffairsAsia would like to thank all entrants, sponsors and winners - most notably lead sponsors Edelman, Fleishman-Hillard and Henry Hale Maguire.
We would like to extend a special note of gratitude to TVB's Patrick Fok, who presented the awards and who kindly donated his MC's fee to Save The Children and Care Bangladesh, two of the NGOs honoured in the inaugural PublicAffairsAsia Gold Standard Awards last night.
THE GOLD STANDARD AWARDS WINNERS, AND FINALISTS, ARE AS FOLLOWS:
The Gold Standard in Public Affairs (In House): Sponsored by Fleishman-Hillard
• ING Insurance Asia Pacific - Corporate Communications Asia (WINNER - pictured above)
• eBay Inc. - Government Relations (Asia Pacific Region)
• Procter & Gamble China - Corporate Communications & Reputation team, External Relations
The Gold Standard in Public Affairs (Consultancy): Sponsored by the PRCA
• Weber Shandwick (WINNER)
• Golin Harris (Hong Kong)
• Ruder Finn
• Parker & Partners
The Gold Standard in Country and Trade Promotion: Sponsored by The Research Pacific Group
• New Zealand Trade and Enterprise (WINNER)
• Invest Hong Kong
• United States Embassy in Indonesia - US Ambassador Cameron Hume (nominated by News Corporation)
The Gold Standard in Crisis Communications
• DBS (Singapore and Hong Kong) - After the collapse of Lehman Brothers (WINNER)
• ING Insurance Asia Pacific - Regaining our customers’ trust and rebuilding our corporate reputation
The Gold Standard in Government Relations: Sponsored by Henry Hale Maguire
• Parker and Partners - The Veolia Engagement (WINNER)
• Procter & Gamble Hygiene and Healthcare Limited (India) - Project Parivartan (COMMENDED)
• Global Government Relations, DLA Piper - The Barclays Asia Trophy
• IBM India PVT LTD - Developing open technologies in India
The Gold Standard in Government Transparency
• National Anti-Corruption Commission of Thailand (WINNER)
• Ogilvy Public Affairs, Beijing - "Tales of Hope" – China’s National Population and Family Planning Commission’s Communication Strategy
• The Indonesian Corruption Eradication Commission
The Gold Standard in Leadership and Development
• Pinnacle Public Relations Training - The Development of Saudi Aramco’s Communications Employees in Saudi Arabia (COMMENDED)
• School of Communication, Hong Kong Baptist University - Summit Conference on the Future of Public Relations in Greater China (COMMENDED)
• The Public Affairs Council - The Jugaad Principle: Managing Government Relations in India (nominated by APCO Worldwide)
• Public Affairs Council/Centre for Corporate Public Affairs - The State of Public Affairs in Asia
The Gold Standard in Social Media Innovation: Sponsored by Edelman
• Korea’s Gyeonggi Provincial Government - Taking a digital social media approach to create public advocacy for the new governmental traffic policy (nominated by Fleishman-Hillard) (WINNER)
• Fleishman-Hillard (Hong Kong) - Project Kaisei: Using a Fully-Integrated Digital Campaign to Save the World’s Oceans
• Waggener Edstrom Worldwide - HP Power to Change Campaign
The Gold Standard in Stakeholder Engagement: Sponsored by Augure Asia
• GlaxoSmithKline Pte Ltd (Singapore) - Increasing vaccine uptake (WINNER)
• Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide (Australia) - Ford Australia
• The Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Australia - The Australian Privacy Awards and the Australian Privacy Medal programmes
The Gold Standard in Sustainability: Sponsored by AmCham China
• CARE Bangladesh - Sustainable Women Empowerment on the Road to Export Markets (WINNER)
• British Council in China - The ‘Climate Cool’ project
• ITT Corporation (China) - ITT Watermark CSR project
The Gold Standard in Political Communications
Winner: Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono
The PublicAffairsAsia Gold Standard Award in Public Affairs Achievement
Awarded to: Save The Children for its work in Afghanistan and vaccine promotion - presented by Ambassador Cameron Hume, US Ambassador to Indonesia | 
