Winsight Grocery Business Earns Prestigious Jesse H. Neal Award

Winsight Grocery Business has earned a prestigious 2019 Jesse H. Neal Award in the category of Best Art Direction for a Cover for its August 2018 issue examining The Kroger Co.’s ongoing strategic reset built on new partnerships to better compete in the rapidly transforming retail food arena. The cover employed a playful, colorful Beatles-esque “Magical Mystery Tour” theme. 

WGB VP of Content Meg Major accepted the fast-growing B2B grocery trade media brand’s accolade on behalf of Winsight Creative Director Bruce Ramsay, Art Director Jacqueline Cantu and Executive Editor Jon Springer at the recent 65th Annual Jesse H. Neal Awards held at Current on Pier 59 in New York.

When announcing WGB’s winning design entry, which was one of 51 awards presented across 21 categories, presenters read an excerpt of the judges’ comments aloud, declaring the cover “conceptually brilliant. [We] love the visual reference to the Beatles in font and illustration style. The design provides enough ‘mystery’ to draw readers in and make them want to open the magazine.”

Winsight Media editors on hand for the 65th Jesse H. Neal Awards luncheon include (L-R): CSP's Jackson Lewis; WGB's Jon Springer and Meg Major; and Peter Romeo and Sara Wirth of Restaurant Business.  Photograph by WGB Staff

Related:Winsight Grocery Business Earns 4 Jesse H. Neal Award Nominations

Aside from WGB’s Neal Award for Kroger’s Magical Mystery Tour cover, the brand was nominated as a finalist in three additional categories: Best News Coverage for Executive Editor Jon Springer’s Supervalu Under Siege web series; Best Overall Art Direction/Design; and Best Art Direction for a Single Article (also for Kroger’s Magical Mystery Tour).

WGB’s sister Winsight Media brands CSP, Convenience Store Products and Restaurant Business also earned a number of Neal Awards and nominations in this year’s competition.

CSP’s groundbreaking feature “Crisis in the C-Store,” about how the opioid crisis has hit home for convenience-store chains across the country, was recognized for Best Single Article in its revenue class at the awards luncheon. CSP and its design team, led by Ramsay, were also honored in the category of Best Overall Art Direction/Design for the magazine’s Road to Fortune series. Ramsay and Restaurant Business Senior Art Director Sara Stewart also won a Neal Award for Best Overall Art Direction/Design.

The Jesse H. Neal Awards are the most prestigious editorial honors in the field of business-to-business journalism. Named after Jesse H. Neal, the first managing director of Connectiv (formerly ABM), the Neal Awards were established in 1955 to recognize and reward editorial excellence in business media and are widely regarded as business-to-business media’s equivalent of the Pulitzer Prizes.