Boston–This year MULTICHANNEL MERCHANT let you–all of you–be the judge. Nearly 700 people voted in our first-ever Audience Choice Awards, the winners of which were announced yesterday during the MCM Awards luncheon presentation. The Multichannel Merchant editorial staff selected finalists in five distinctly nontraditional categories and then collected votes between April 26 and May 21.
Winning the Merchandising Moment of Genius award was U.K. cataloger Presents Direct for the Perfect Body Duvet Covers. The other finalists were LEM Products, for the Jerky Gun; Viva!, for the Foldable Far Infrared Sauna; and Whitehorse Gear, for the Anti Monkey Butt Powder.
The winner in the Cutest Canine category was apparel cataloger/retailer Coldwater Creek. The other finalists were The Lakeside Collection, Mini Boden, and Neiman Marcus.
The catalog with the Finest Food Photography (Non-Harry & David) was Godiva. The other finalists: Allen Brothers, Hale Groves, John & Kiras, and Meduri World Delights.
Earning the distinction of having the Hottest Headset Model was DBL Distributing, which sells to retailers of consumer electronics. It faced stiff competition from Black Box Corp., National Business Furniture, and Van Dyke’s Restorers.
And the cataloger with the Headline of the Year was X-treme Geek for “Finally, an iPod Dock that Holds Toilet Paper.” The other contenders were BMW Guide, which said of its motorcycle boots, “They’re Like Bunny Slippers–Armored Leather Ones”; Jonathan Adler, which highlighted “A zebra rug even a zebra would own!”; The Sharper Image for its headline for the GPS system Locate 1, “Hidden wireless GPS secretly tracks anything that moves–your car or your kid…or your kid in your car!”; and Zingerman’s for its introduction of the Phantom of the Fridge Gift Box, “Late night refrigerator lust causing trouble?”
As for the MCM Awards, a list of the Gold and Silver winners is available here