The 2021 Asia-Pacific SABRE Awards are now open for entries, via the dedicated entry platform.

The 11th edition of the Asia-Pacific SABRE Awards recognize the best in public relations programming from across the Asia-Pacific region and are open to campaigns developed by agencies, corporations, not-for-profit organizations, government agencies and more.

The SABRE Awards competition recognizes Superior Achievement in Branding, Reputation and Engagement and has a 30-year heritage, with competitions in North America, EMEA, Latin America and Africa as well as the Asia-Pacific competition.

In addition to categories celebrating the best campaigns from specific geographic markets, the Asia-Pacific competition recognizes great work in specific practice areas (from consumer PR to public affairs to employee communications) and in industry sectors (healthcare, technology, not-for-profit). The IN2 SABRE awards, meanwhile, focus on Insight+Innovation, with categories for the best use of data and analytics and new digital and social channels.

The entry website includes a complete list of categories, entry fee and deadline information (the early deadline is June 7, the late deadline is July 12), as well as tips for crafting a winning entry.

The SABRE Awards will also run alongside the APACD Awards, focusing specifically on in-house communications excellence. Due to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, the exact format of the awards ceremony, and the Asia-Pacific Communications Summit, remains to be seen. 

"The past 12 months have been extremely challenging for everyone, not least those of us responsible for maintaining the close relationships between organizations and their key stakeholders," said Arun Sudhaman, editor-in-chief at PRovoke Media and chair of the SABRE Asia-Pacific jury. "But we know that the public relations profession has risen to the challenge, and that much of the work that was conducted over the past 12 months was among the most innovative and creative we have ever seen.

"We are aware that everything organizations did during the past year took place against a backdrop of the Covid-19 pandemic, and while we have not introduced a specific Covid-19 category this year, we will be looking at every category closely, and when appropriate we will reserve the right to split the category — employee communications, for example, or executive leadership — in two, so that both Covid-related work and more general campaigns can be recognized."

We are currently drawing up a jury of industry leaders across agency and corporate — if you'd like to be considered, please let us know. 

At last year's Asia-Pacific SABRE Awards, which took place virtually, KFC's 'Michelin Impossible' won Best in Show, while BCW and Archetype took the top Agency of the Year honours.