MRG announces Awards shortlists

Winners are to be announced at MRG's annual conference, held in Monte Carlo in November. 

Teams from Mediacom, PHD and UM are the three nominees for the media agency award, while Dipsticks Research, Ipsos MediCT and Sparkler will complete for the media research supplier prize.

Meanwhile, CBS Outdoor, Sky Media and Yahoo! were nominated for the media owner award.

There were four nominees for the Best International Research Initiative award, which is sponsored by Warc. Joint efforts from CBS Outdoor International and Kantar Media, and comScore and Facebook, will compete with Google and MPG Media Contacts for the prize.

As well as the eight shortlisted categories, two further awards will be handed out by the MRG in Monte Carlo.

One, the Grand Prix, will be the "best in class", chosen from among the eight category winners. The other, the IPA/Simon Broadbent Award, will go to the best paper delivered at the conference.

This latter award will be decided via a conference delegates' vote.

Commenting on the shortlists, MRG chair John Carroll said: "Research and insight teams are the heartbeat of media and high calibre research adds a crucial creative and competitive edge.

"We have had a fantastic response for this year's awards and the standard of entries has been incredibly high."

The MRG Awards nominees are to be assessed by an international judges' panel, which includes IPA research director Lynne Robinson and IAB UK research and strategy director Tim Elkington.

Warc will also be at the MRG's conference, with coverage to appear in warc.com's Event Reports section.