SIMA Image Awards Ceremony to Move to Southern Cal. from Cabo

The Surf Industry Manufacturers Association (SIMA) announced that the next SIMA Image Awards ceremony will be held in southern California in early 2011. For the past seven years, the annual awards ceremony has been held on the final night of Surf Summit each May in Cabo San Lucas.

While the SIMA Image Awards ceremony stood as a highly anticipated component of the surf industry conference, the audience has been limited because the event was held out of the country.

The goal of the decision made by the SIMA Board of Directors to bring the ceremony stateside is to allow more of the surf industry to participate in the culmination of this peer recognition program.
 
“The SIMA Image Awards have grown to be a very influential and important program to our industry,” said Doug Palladini, President of SIMA and Vice President of Marketing for Vans. “There are so many people involved with the products and brands nominated for SIMA Image Awards each year – from designers to sales reps, to marketing coordinators and retail shop staff – and not all of these people can be in Cabo at Surf Summit for the final awards ceremony. The SIMA Board of Directors feels it is important to bring the Image Awards ceremony to a more accessible location in an effort to include more people from more of our member brands and retail partners, and have them join in the celebration of seeing the products theyve worked countless hours on be honored in front of their peers and the media.”
 
Moving the ceremony to early 2011 will also allow for the SIMA Image Awards to be awarded in a more timely fashion. Instead of waiting until Surf Summit in May to learn the winners of awards based on a calendar year, the awards for success at market during 2010 will be given just a few months after the close of the year, in January or February 2011.
 
Entries for the next round of SIMA Image Awards will be open to all paid SIMA members this fall. The awards will be for products at market from January 1, 2010 through December 31, 2010.

The 15 award categories are: Breakthrough Brand of the Year; Breakthrough Retailer of the Year; Accessory Product of the Year; Footwear Product of the Year; Environmental Product of the Year; Surfboard Model of the Year; Wetsuit of the Year; Men’s Marketing Campaign of the Year; Men’s Boardshort of the Year; Men’s Apparel Brand of the Year; Men’s Retailer of the Year; Women’s Marketing Campaign of the Year; Women’s Swim Brand of the Year; Women’s Apparel Brand of the Year; and Women’s Retailer of the Year.