READER AWARDS: DO YOU TRUST THEM?
Barely a day goes by without a magazine appearing with its own 'reader awards'.
Yesterday, for example, Bangkok-based Lifestyle + Travel magazine announced its readers had voted 55 at Centara Grand as Thailand's Best Restaurant. Similarly the August edition of U.S. magazine Travel + Leisure ranks Bangkok in third place (down from first place in 2008) in its own World's Best Cities reader awards.
Many magazines and newspapers operate similar awards. They extend the brand and provide interaction with readers, but how believable are they and how much are they influenced by advertising? Or worse still, how susceptible are they to vote rigging?
I'm a fan of ranking reports that use tried an tested, and independent, methodology to place companies, products or services in order. They tend to have far more credibility and, over time, establish much more of an image and reputation.
3 comments:
In Thailand, what do you think? Independent? really?
My favourite awards are the property awards, where Best condo/villa/project, etc is given to properties that aren't even completed yet. How do you know they are the best?
Awards are hard to run and take time and investment if they are to be done right, but they are basically just marketing tools so of course they are influenced by your advertisers.
Of course "best" is about opinions.
You are absolutely correct in saying awards are a big investment, but if you look at the more respected ones (Fortune 500, Forbes Rich List or BusinessWeek's Best Business Schools) they're in no way influenced by advertising or other external factors. And those are ones that do not rely on votes; they work to a transparent methodology that looks at many factors.
But for a magazine awards can be good PR, and you only have to look at the plethora of press releases that are issued when, for example, a Thai bank gets an award from the overseas financial media, to see that.
(Note: In the interests of complete transparency I am associated with the Thai language licensed edition of BusinessWeek).
Unless Travel + Leisure magazine base their awards system on the availability of cheap beer and prostitutes, there is no way Bangkok could even rank in the top 20 cities in the world - let alone number one and three respectively.
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