AmericasMart Announces 2nd Annual ICON HONORS Awards, set for July 2011
Atlanta, GA — ICON HONORS marks its resounding 2010 inaugural triumph with a 2011 program newly created to celebrate superior achievement, contribution and innovation across the home and gift industry landscape.
The Gift & Home Trade Association (GHTA) and AmericasMart Atlanta, in continuing alliance, will produce ICON HONORS 2011 in exclusive partnership with a new media consortium integrating five of the most prominent and respected magazines in the gift and home arena: Gifts & Decorative Accessories, Home Accents Today, Home Textiles Today, Furniture Today and Casual Living, all published by Sandow Media Retail Group.
The 2011 charge accelerates and advances the spirit, creativity, energy and vitality in which ICON HONORS was conceived and born, notes Jeffrey L. Portman, Sr., AmericasMart Atlanta president and chief operating officer.
“ICON HONORS emerges as both a dream realized and the promise of a resurging, renewing vision for 2011 and beyond,” notes Portman. “To capture the exuberance and passion of the inaugural year in pursuit of an even richer, more relevant and exciting 2011 program is our collective conviction, now made stronger through the Sandow Media partnership,” Portman adds.
Introduced in September 2009 for its July 2010 premiere, ICON HONORS was created to be and continues as the first international program fully embracing the gift and home categories in an independent recognition of exemplary achievement across the industry spectrum: retailing, product manufacturing, product sales and service provision.
The 2010 inaugural event, staged in Atlanta on July 17th before a capacity audience of more than 1,000, conferred ICON HONORS recognitions upon 12 retailers, manufacturers, product designers and sales representatives selected by a panel of independent judges from a field of more than 1,000 applications, nominations and submissions.
Noteworthy among the inaugural honorees are James Douglas Glover, posthumous recipient of the ICON 2010 Lifetime Achievement Honor; Peter Schauben, recipient of the ICON 2010 Industry Stewardship Honor; and Anthropologie and the Museum of Modern Art Retail, both recipients of the AmericasMart Medal of Excellence Honor.
“In ICON HONORS 2010, we saw an industry in search of new direction come together in one voice, on one spectacular night, to witness and applaud its magnificence,” notes George Kacic, GHTA executive committee chairman and vice president of Ganz USA. “We expect the 2011 edition to be all of that, and much more,” Kacic adds.
ICON HONORS 2011 will again embrace the full GHTA membership in reaching and engaging the home and gift industry at large in full collaboration with AmericasMart Atlanta and its global customer base.
The ICON HONORS 2011 event is scheduled for Thursday, July 14 at the Atlanta Marriott Marquis. Dates and deadlines for the official ICON HONORS 2011 call for submissions and nominations, and for Event ticket reservations and sales, will be published in early January 2011.
