Maisonneuve wins best in show at newsstand awards

Congratulations to the magazines who won the Canadian Newsstand Awards, announced this week at Magazines University.

Best in show was Maisonneuve magazine, fittingly for its Winter 2006/07 issue that almost didn't make it onto the racks at Chapters/Indigo as the chain ordered it to be polybagged to keep tender eyes from seeing some pictures of strippers inside. Maisonneuve took the lemon and made lemonade with it, putting a garish polybag on the issue with a warning “DANGER: STYLISH, WITTY, THOUGHT-PROVOKING MATERIAL INSIDE. Oh, and a few nipples.” As it result it was a bestseller.

Other winners in the newsstand awards, which are run by Masthead magazine in partnership with HDS Retail, Transcontinental Printing, Quark, Audit Bureau of Circulations, Department of Canadian Heritage and the Circulation Management Association, were:

New Magazine: Hello! Canada from Rogers Publishing

Extra Large (over 200,000 circ.): Châtelaine (Rogers)

Large (75,000 50 199,999): Elle Canada (Transcontinental)

Mid-size (10,000 to 74,999): The Beaver: Canada's National History Magazine.

Small (<10,000):This Magazine

Newsstand Marketer of the Year award was Mark Hamill, Director of Retail Sales for Rogers Publishing.

Visuals of all the winners and finalist can be found here.

Winning magazines in most categories receive $3,500 each in credits towards promotional programs at newsstands owned by HDS Retail. The small magazine winner gets $1,000 in credits, plus $500 cash. Judging is generally done so that 50% of a title's score is based on its newsstand sales performance and 50% on qualitative factors such as newsstand-friendly cover design. Credit is also given for innovative use of promotional devices.