CSNews Named Finalist for Three Editorial Excellence Awards

JERSEY CITY, N.J. — Convenience Store News is once again being recognized among the best of the best in business-to-business publishing. This time, the convenience store industry’s No. 1 media brand is a finalist for both national and regional awards in the 2015 Azbee Awards competition, sponsored by the American Society of Business Press Editors (ASBPE).

CSNews is a finalist in two categories for outstanding editorial enterprise for its profile on 7-Eleven Inc.’s changing business model, and its groundbreaking look at how the convenience store format will evolve over the next several years while serving a changing customer base.

ASBPE’s annual competition recognizes the hard work and commitment of business-to-business and professional magazine, newsletter and web editors and designers. The Azbee Award is a prestigious acknowledgement that the work has met high standards of excellence and is at the top of the profession. The society’s contest is extremely competitive and one of the largest U.S. business publication competitions.

CSNews’ editorial team will receive a gold, silver or bronze award in both the national and regional categories for Best Profile (long form) for “7-Eleven’s Journey to Change,” published in February 2014.

For this piece, the CSNews edit staff examined the world’s largest convenience store chain’s efforts to change its business model from a mix of 50 percent corporate-owned and 50 percent franchised or licensed units, to an almost entirely franchised model. The CSNews editorial team interviewed both happy and unhappy franchisees, current and former corporate employees, and independent consultants; studied and published consumer research about the company; and poured through corporate reports from the Dallas-based chain’s parent in Japan to uncover the reasons why the retailer had only partially realized its goal. This uncompromising analysis of the biggest retailer in the c-store industry provided critical information for every retailer and supplier in the industry.

In addition to the national and regional recognition for the 7-Eleven profile, CSNews’ editorial team is also a regional finalist for Best Special Supplement for its November 2014 Store of the Future supplement. This special edition of CSNews centered on the future evolution of the c-store format and included content and artists’ renderings from some of the industry’s leading thought-leaders and design firms. The report took the unusual tact of featuring four different versions of the future, each focused on different aspects of the convenience experience and on different customer archetypes.

“I couldn’t be more proud of the CSNews editorial team,” said Editorial Director Don Longo. “I’m especially pleased to note that both entries represent complete team efforts of our editors, writing and design staff — the best in the business. Both entries are also extremely important pieces of in-depth research and analysis of topics critical to the success of our readers.”

CSNews has won 15 other media industry editorial awards over the past seven years.