Business

CLIO awards return to downtown just as advertised

The advertising world’s red-carpet event is returning to the Big Apple.

The CLIO Awards will be back after a 13-year absence this week.

“I wanted to bring it back to New York — the heart of the ad industry — and make it something that people really enjoy attending,” said Richard Beckman.

Beckman, the former Condé Nast executive, inherited the show when his newly formed e5Global Media took over the magazines Adweek, The Hollywood Reporter and Billboard from Nielsen Business Media last year.

Beckman, who engineered the Fashion Rocks extravaganzas at Radio City Music Hall when he was at Condé, is converting the awards ceremony from a cocktail party to a formal dinner with a touch of Tinseltown thrown in with actors John Michael Higgins and Rob Riggle playing host.

The award show’s return to downtown will be accompanied by a two-day conference at the Trump SoHo on May 26 and 27. Each day will be followed by an awards night where 347 awards will be presented at the Skylight SoHo.

Said Adweek’s Special Events Director Karl Vontz of the large number of awards, “When you look at all the different mediums and categories, it is not much at all.

“How you advertise on an iPhone is a lot different from how you advertise on TV. And a viral video might be very funny, but at the same time totally inappropriate for a TV ad.”

Beckman, never one to rest on past successes, is already looking to jazz up the awards show more next year.

He said in the past, the CLIO awards were spun together into a fast-paced TV special, but there has not been one for the past several years.

“We’re looking at a TV deal for next year — especially when you see how entertaining the advertising is as an art form,” said Beckman.

In all, more than 11,000 have entered — from categories as diverse as print, billboards, TV, cinema and digital — to win an award named after the Greek goddess Clio, who is a daughter of Zeus, the muse of history and is also known as “The Proclaimer.” We can bet the winners will let us know if they’ve won one.