KUALA LUMPUR – The New Straits Times has collected two awards in just one month.

The newspaper won the prestigious The BrandLaureate Awards 2011 last night for Best Brand under the Media (Newspaper) category. The BrandLaureate president Datuk K.K Johan presented the award to the New Straits Times Press marketing director Zuraida Mohamad.

Two weeks earlier, a series of the NST’s advertisements won three prizes at the recent Asia Pacific Advertising Festival (AdFest) 2011. Ad agency McCann Erickson Malaysia who produced the advertisements emerged as the big champ, winning the Grand Prix award in the Poster Lotus category for the ‘NST Perspectives-Riot’ poster.

McCann also did Malaysia proud by winning a Gold for the total ‘Perspectives’ campaign and a Silver for its ‘NST Perspectives – Exploitation’ poster. The agency was also awarded a Finalist Certificate for its ‘NST Perspectives – Smuggling’ poster.

The three posters for NST’s Perspectives campaign was launched in March 2010. NST invested approximately RM3 million in media buys across multiple platforms including print, outdoor, online, radio, and television, during the three-month campaign.

“The awareness campaign drew a positive reaction from readers and clients,” said Zuraida.

“The net result of this campaign was that it helped us redefine our editorial content, create market relevance, deliver our brand promise – and increase our advertising revenue.”