January 16, 2010 was a big day for Blissliving Home. As the Assistant Manager for PR & Marketing, I was fortunate to join Mei Xu, Creator & CEO of Blissliving Home, to the 21st ARTS Awards Ceremony at the Dallas Market Center where our brand was recognized with the ARTS Award in the Home Textiles Category. The ARTS Award program, held every year during the Dallas January Super Market Week, is the only international program recognizing excellence in retailing, manufacturing, product design and sales representation of decorative home accessories. Through this program, retailers, manufacturers and sales representatives are recognized by their peers for excellence in the development of product, retail merchandising and sales representation of decorative home accessories. Needless to say, it was a magnificent honor for Blissliving Home!
The ARTS award process takes almost a whole year. First, a panel of judges is selected in February. A call for nominations is issued in April running through June. Finalists are notified in August. Truth be told, this is when and how I first learned about the ARTS Award. After speaking to our Business Manager, a few friends in the media (such as the lovely Pam Graves from Home Fashion magazine and conducting a little bit of research, I quickly understood what an extraordinary recognition this nomination was. All nominees have to prepare a complex presentation showcasing their company history and philosophy, company differentiation, promotion and advertising initiatives, and of course product strategy. As with most projects, creating our presentation binder was a true team effort for the Blissliving Home team. A special thank you must go to Amber Kleiner, our Design Manager, for developing the overall concept and to Stephanie Tait, our PR & Marketing Assistant, for working closely with Amber to execute the design. The team did not spare any efforts to create our award winning presentation!
The ARTS Awards process ends with an announcement of the winners at a dazzling gala at the Dallas Market Center in January. As mentioned above, Mei and I made the trip to Texas. Seeing Mei accept the award was truly a special moment for me – after all, I have been with Blissliving Home from day one, and have witnessed our “baby” grow every day of every year. A Thank you goes out to all our customers and those who follow us, our business partners and vendors who have helped us grow over the past three years – we could not have done it without you! And a special note to the Accessories Resource Team – we plan to be back in January 2011!
