omy.sg is the only Singapore winner at INMA Awards 2012

Los Angeles, California, 8 May 2012 – omy.sg, the leading bilingual news and entertainment news portal of Singapore Press Holdings (SPH), was the only Singapore winner at INMA Awards 2012, the prestigious international news media marketing awards.

It won third place in the Marketing Solutions for Advertising Clients (circulation over 300,000) category for its social media initiative, omy Blog Club.

omy.sg was among the winners announced yesterday in the world’s premier competition for marketing news media brands by the International Newsmedia Marketing Association (INMA) at the INMA World Congress at the J.W. Marriott in Los Angeles.

Mr Chua Chim Kang, editor of omy.sg and Lianhe Wanbao, said: “We are extremely honoured to have won this award. It is a strong affirmation of our innovative social media initiatives which give advertisers more engagement with the users beyond typical online advertisement campaigns.”

For the Marketing Solutions for Advertising Clients category, judges looked for creative marketing campaigns that provide added value to advertisers and at the same time, generate new revenue or attract new advertisers.

The omy Blog club allowed omy.sg to leverage on its database of over 3,000 bloggers to offer advertisers a unique proposition utilising various social engagement tools such as blogs, Facebook and Twitter.

Partnering with advertisers, the omy Blog club organises events for bloggers. Events include sponsored cinema outings with United International Picture, an annual blogging contest with F&N and a cruise sponsored by Royal Caribbean.

Annual ad revenue for omy.sg grew exponentially by over 90 per cent from 2009 to 2010 with the introduction of the omy Blog club. It also attracted new advertisers, including major brands like Estee Lauder, Nestle, Panasonic and Canon.

The INMA Awards 2012 saw 89 recipients from 66 newsmedia companies in 23 countries across 10 categories and three circulation groups. The competition was judged by an international panel of 24 industry experts from media companies, advertising agencies, trade magazines, and more. Judges came from the Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Mexico, Oman, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, United Kingdom, and the United States.