The team at Canstar Blue has been encouraged by both the quality and quantity of enquiries it has received for its inaugural Innovation Excellence Awards, according to business unit lead Megan Doyle.
Since launching the new awards program late last month, Canstar Blue has seen lots of interest, with both suppliers and consumers suggesting innovative appliances and electronic products as potential award winners.
“We have been fielding phone calls and emails from interested applicants in both Australia and New Zealand, which is very exciting,” Doyle said. “We’ve heard about some fantastic, innovative products to date and would love to see many more over the coming days.”
The Innovation Excellence Awards are a new venture for Canstar Blue, which regularly surveys Australian consumers to identify brands with the most satisfied customers across myriad product and service categories.
The format for identifying the best innovations from the past year is borrowed from Canstar’s financial services awards programs, which have proven successful over a number of years.
Doyle said suppliers thinking about entering should know that it is free to enter and there is no obligation to licence the Canstar Blue logo should they be named winners.
“Product and marketing managers considering entering the awards should do so as soon as possible as the closing date is fast approaching, and we wouldn’t want a worthy applicant to miss out on being considered,” Doyle said, referring to the 15 August 2014 deadline. “Multiple products can be entered from any brand, if they are considered to be innovative in either the Australian or New Zealand marketplaces.”
The Canstar Blue Innovation Excellence Awards are open to entry until 15 August 2014. Canstar Blue will use experts to assess how innovative the nominations have been over the past 12 months. The innovation will be assessed over five variables: Unique, Disruptive, ‘Wow’, Breadth of Impact and Depth of Impact.