EDC wins regional marketing honors

PROVIDENCE – The R.I. Economic Development Corporation (EDC) has received three awards from the Northeastern Economic Developers Association (NEDA), the agency said today.
“NEDA’s recognition of our team’s good work celebrates RIEDC’s thoughtful and creative approach to communicating about Rhode Island with both in and out-of-state audiences,” Saul Kaplan, the EDC’s executive director, said in a statement today. “The team has done an excellent job of creating cost-efficient, yet highly effective products for our economic-development activity.”
At the NEDA’s recent 2008 Literature and Promotion Awards, the EDC received:
• An “Excellent” for its Opportunity: Rhode Island direct-mail campaign. The mailings are part of a regional campaign, financed in part by the Rhode Island Commodores, that was launched this February. Opportunity: Rhode Island – initially focused on the financial services, information technology and digital media, and health and life sciences sectors – identifies expansion and relocation opportunities. Besides direct marketing, the campaign relies on industry events and peer outreach to generate business-development leads.
• Another “Excellent” for the agency’s Web-site redesign. The revised www.riedc.com, launched early this year, was the product of “strategic in-house redesign of the site to make the agency’s business services, data and publications, mission and strategy and pertinent business-development news more accessible to users,” the EDC said.
• A “Merit” award for the EDC’s print marketing collateral. The print materials – redesigned last year in the same “clean and accessible design” as the new Web site – focus on each key industry sector in the state and present information on EDC programs and services, the agency said.
Entries for the NEDA awards – bestowed at the regional trade group’s recent annual conference in Buffalo, N.Y. – were rated for design and layout; clarity of message; production quality; functionality; and overall creativity and impact. Judging was by a panel of marketing and economic-development experts, drawn from across the NEDA region: Rhode Island, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Maine, Massachusetts, Maryland, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania and Vermont.
The R.I. Economic Development Corporation is a quasi-public agency established to promote business development, preservation and expansion in the state and undertake port projects in Rhode Island. Additional information, including the EDC’s 2008 Growth Plan, is available at www.riedc.com.
The Northeastern Economic Development Association (NEDA), founded in 1956, aims to promote economic and industrial development throughout the Northeast; encourage collaboration among member states to strengthen their local and regional economies and enhance their quality of life; and provide education, resources and networking opportunities to economic development professionals. Additional information is available at www.nedaonline.org.