Horton Media scoops NZ print awards

Horton Media dominates 2009 Pride in Print awards; doubles gold tally to 16.

Horton Media scooped the New Zealand national printing awards on Friday – winning eight of the eleven gold medals awarded for coldset printing.

The company won three golds for its daily and weekly customers and took all of the gold medals for the cold-set commercial category.

The medals, which accompanied two High Commendations, were awarded at the New Zealand Pride in Print awards in Wellington.

Horton Media now boasts a tally of sixteen gold medals from the Pride in Print awards – more than triple the number of its nearest competitor.

It was the first year the company won gold in the daily and weekly newspaper category usually dominated by publishers of the large English-language titles.

Horton Media picked up firsts for Chinese weekly “Property Overview”, Korean title “Property Journal” and improved upon its Highly Commended in 2007 for English newspaper “The Weekly Telegraph”.

The company also reasserted its dominance of the coldset commercial category – winning all five golds awarded for papers in this designation.

Winning clients included: “NZ Aviation News” (March), “Cook Islands Sun”, “Indian Newslink”, “Valley Voice” and “Chinese Property Special”.

“Valley Voice” (December) and “NZ Aviation News” (September) also received Highly Commended certificates.

The wins follow on from Horton Media’s clean sweep of the NZ Single Width User Group (SWUG) newspaper printing awards in March, in which it took first, second and third places for the second year in a row.

The company was also second-placed at the Australian SWUG awards this year.

Chief Executive Matthew Horton said the medals were a fair reward for the efforts of the company’s staff.

“We are thrilled for the staff who have shown they can consistently sustain printing of the highest quality from week to week and year to year,” he said.

“These awards prove our clients are receiving the best cold-set printing in New Zealand. We think that’s particularly important when advertising has never been harder to sell.”