​PRIDA Communication Awards, which was organized for the third time this year, and IDA Academy Awards, which was organized for the first time this year by Communication Consultancies Association of Turkey (IDA), have been given to the owners with a ceremony at Novotel Istanbul Bosphorus on Wednesday, 15th January. The winner of the IDA Academy Awards, which was given for the first time, was the students of Istanbul Aydın University Public Relations and Publicity Department Gökçe Burgaz, Meltem Çetin, Musa Kaya and Huriye Doğan with the "Professional Gender Inequality in Advertising Project".

IDA Academy, in which IDA conducts its academic studies and collaborations, has also started a new award program this year. More than 200 public relations projects applied to the İIA Academy Awards which are prepared in line with the brief given by the Advertisers Association. Among these projects, two groups from the Public Relations and Publicity Department of Istanbul Aydın University passed the pre-selection among 200 projects and reached the finals. ‘’Gender Equality Movement in Advertising’’ project prepared by Berat Baran Turgut, Ekin Alkış, Emre Çavuşoğlu, İrem Şık and ‘’Professional Gender Inequality in Advertising’’ project prepared by final year students Gökçe Burgaz, Huriye Doğan, Meltem Çetin, Musa Kaya which are prepared for the competition with consultancy of the head of the department Asst. Prof. Dr. Deniz Akbulut deserved the final. Four of the 8 groups that presented the projects in front of the jury were placed.

According to the brief given by the Advertisers Association, students who prepared a corporate communication campaign that would create awareness and perception change regarding gender equality in advertising made their presentations to the guests in the area reserved for them in the foyer. Istanbul Aydın University students were selected as the winner of the İDA Academy Awards which were given for the first time this year with the ‘’Professional Gender Inequality in Advertising Project’’. In the competition, Kadir Has University became the second and Istanbul University became the third. 

Advertisers Association Acting President Ayşen Akalın, who presented the IDA Academy Awards at the ceremony, said: ‘’As the Association of Advertisers, we want to change the advertising and media content based on equality with the collaboration of advertisers, brands and advertisers by using the transformative effect of the advertisement in a positive way. In the subject of our agenda, we also gave a brief to our students who applied to the IDA Academy Awards about aiming to break the perception of gender stereotypes in advertisements. They also presented their beautiful ideas which impressed us a lot. I congratulate all our students who are both placed and applied to competition for their successful work. I believe that we will work with them in the future.’’ In the coming days, the Advertisers Association plans to carry out the projects by interviewing top placed students. At the ceremony attended by agency representatives, professionals from business and industry associations, academics and university students, successful communication studies, long-term collaborations and communication masters were awarded with a total of 61 awards. During the ceremony, Salim Kadıbeşegil who is a member of IDA's Chair of Honor, signed his last book named Corporate Lessons for the guests.