TORONTO—Canada’s only advertising and design awards program recognizing business effectiveness is open for entries.

Entries to the CASSIES, celebrating its 20th year in 2013, must be filed online at www.cassies.ca by Thursday, August 2, 2012 at noon EST. Winners will be announced at the CASSIES annual awards show on Monday, Jan. 28, 2013 at the Ritz-Carlton in Toronto. Tickets to attend the awards show will go on sale in early September on the site.

Any paid communications campaign that proves solid business outcomes, via tracking, data and research results, is eligible to enter.

“We are encouraging entries from all types of communications disciplines, including PR, social media, mobile marketing and shopper marketing,” said David Gibb, CASSIES board chair and executive vice president, managing director, JWT. “There is a misconception that the CASSIES are specifically for traditional advertising, however these awards encompass all business-building campaigns, regardless of the specific marketing mixes.”

A few of the categories include packaged goods, best launch, best integrated program, and best use of media.

Awards organizers noted gold-winning entries will be summarized in Strategy magazine’s February issue, and qualify for The Globe Effectiveness Prize, which provides delegate passes to the Cannes Lions festival to the winning client-agency team. Additionally, select winners will appear in a five-part series of stories released on the Report On Business website and are invited to present their cases live at the annual LIFT conference in the spring of 2012.

The CASSIES are presented by the Institute of Communication Agencies (ICA), the Association des agences de Publicité du Québec (AAPQ) and Association des professionnels de la communication et du marketing (APCM) and produced by Strategy magazine. The 2013 sponsors are The Globe and Mail, Millward Brown and john st.