2023 Submissions Open Monday, June 5
Submissions will be accepted until August 15, 2023. Preparing ahead? Be sure to review the FAQs below and determine the appropriate Awards Category.
Why submit? What is in it for my community?
Marketing is a challenging, but essential activity. Excellence in marketing has become a critical differentiator for Canada’s Economic Development Professionals. The Marketing Canada Awards acknowledge and praise communities who have succeeded at this critical task.
Tips of the trade are constantly sought. Good examples are studied as a way of uncovering the secrets of success. The elements and quality required to compete in the business marketplace are constantly changing. And now more than ever, funds to ensure marketing success are often in need annual justification.
EDAC has been highlighting these challenges and trends for decades, while recognizing the best of the best with our Marketing Canada Awards.
With the future of economic development in mind, EDAC’s Marketing Canada Awards have chosen to focus on highlighting up-and-coming best practices in marketing and community initiatives.
Benefits of submitting your projects annually to the EDAC Marketing Canada Awards:
- A forum to share best practices and enhance the marketing efforts of all those working in the field of economic development
- Equip you to make a case for your future requests for marketing budgeting and resources
- Recognition of your project based on creativity, effectiveness and excellence in promoting your community and furthering economic development priorities
- Tips for the future – the adjudication committee will happily share their comments on a project with winners or runners up!
- Added profile for your projects by being showcased in the EDAC Gallery of Nominees
- For winning recipients, being recognized at our in-person conference as well as our virtual Winners Week
Want to know more about our newest tradition? Winners Week is where we live Tweet (and share to all other social channels) the celebration of all Marketing Canada Awards recipients. This provides an opportunity to share your project and prestigious accolades digitally with colleagues, investors, tourists, etc. coast to coast to coast. The Cup Contenders and the EDAC Cup recipients also have the opportunity to share a short video presentation that is published online to all our channels!
Learn more about…
The awards competition is open to both EDAC members and non-members; however, members receive a significant discount! This competition is for any organization marketing Canadian provinces, territories, regions, cities, towns and areas with a view to improving the economic wellbeing of Canadians.
To be eligible: Submissions must include projects that have not previously won an EDAC Marketing Canada Award and that have been in use within the last 12 months.
Before you submit, ensure you have determined:
- Your organizations Budget Category
- Each submissions: Award Category, title, cover image, abstract, additional supporting documents
To submit your project(s), simply follow these steps:
- Review the Awards Categories
- Complete the Online Submission Form
- For each submission:
- include a Title
- upload a submission Cover Image (used for our Gallery of Entries)
- paste in your Abstract – approx. 500 words
- upload 1-5 additional supporting materials
- Pay online
Each submission’s abstract should be approximately 500 words and should detail the purpose and impact of your marketing efforts. This information will be significant as the purpose behind the marketing can be more important than what the judges can determine simply by viewing the samples received.
For each submission’s abstract, include:
- Purpose of Project (including anticipated outcomes)
- Effectiveness / Meeting Objectives (if known)
- Challenges & Changes made
- Target Audience (demographics)
- Any specifics as detailed in the particular Awards Categories
- Any details regarding the sustainability of your project. Sustainability is about being mindful of one’s place, processes, and mentality in order to influence change for the better of our communities, local and global.
For EDAC’s Marketing Awards, there are 12 categories to choose from to apply your submission within.
Find the details of each on the dedicated Awards Category page.
Submissions are organized according to total economic development operating budget (including salaries), not individual project budget.
- Less than $200,000
- $200,000-$600,000
- Greater than $600,000
The Marketing Canada Awards Judging Panel is made up of a diverse group of individuals with marketing and promotion expertise. Judges will evaluate submissions to determine award recipients.
Submissions will be evaluated based on the following criteria:
- Creativity and uniqueness of the approach
- Effectiveness in achieving objectives
- User-friendliness
- Ease of extracting information
- Completeness and consistency of approach
Our Gallery of Nominees is where we showcase all Marketing Canada Award submissions online! This means you can:
- View all nominees by award category for inspiration
- Share submissions via email and social
- Gather ideas and best practices
- Review the winning submissions after the awards are presented at our annual conference
This will be available on edac.ca once all submission have been received and reviewed.
Each year, recipients across the country are recognized for excellence in promoting their communities and furthering their economic development priorities. EDAC’s Marketing Canada Awards have traditionally been presented at our in-person conferences. However, in the past few years we have had to pivot to virtual – which has been a huge success. We recognize and showcase all recipients via our ‘Winners Week’ on social media. The Cup Contenders and the EDAC Cup recipients also make a short video presentation that is published online! This year, we will combine in-person presentation with virtual celebrations, as we host some of you at our Annual Conference. Plaques will be mailed to anyone who is not in attendance at the conference.
Winner Testimonials
“Economic Development Winnipeg was extremely proud to win the 2021 EDAC Cup as well as the Promotional Item award at the Marketing Canada Awards. Being recognized for our economic development marketing initiatives from a group of Canadian industry peers is very humbling and we hope that our project ‘What is Economic Development?’ shines a light on the important role that organizations like ours across Canada do to grow the economy and make our cities great places to invest, live, work and visit.”
Tyler Walsh – Director, Marketing, Economic Development Winnipeg
The City of Wetaskiwin was honoured to have received national recognition as the recipient of a highly esteemed award from the Economic Developers Association of Canada (EDAC). “The City of We Share” Branding was selected by EDAC as one of the winning submissions and Cup Contender for their 2021 Marketing Canada Awards Campaign! A huge thank you to the Economic Developers Association of Canada and the selection committee for recognizing our community as we continue to make Wetaskiwin the welcoming place that it is.
Raelene Coffey – City of Wetaskiwin
