"Word of mouth" is a great tool, but digitizing it can be problematic. But using digital tools to promote the award is a good idea. It brings several bonuses at once:
For example, by launching targeted advertising for different audiences, over time you can understand what age, geolocation, interests your target audience has and what social networks they prefer. Having this knowledge, you can improve your marketing strategy and increase its effectiveness.
You exclude those who are not your target audience and do not waste time interacting with them.
You understand where your weak points are. For example, the northeast cell phone number list award site takes a long time to load on a mobile device and there is a large number of drops in the referred traffic. Or the application process is so complicated that people close the page in the middle. By eliminating such weak points, you can improve the result many times over.
The news hook and materials about the event can be used more than once. For example, the promotion of "Best Roofer" includes several stages: announcement of the start of applications, collection of applications, public voting, announcement of the award ceremony, and most importantly - a story about how the ceremony went, interviews with the winners, etc. Since the award is annual, all these stages are collected into a cycle, and the results for each can be tracked annually.
Based on all of the above, we can conclude: an event is needed to promote a brand on the market, as well as to communicate with the target audience. But it must be approached wisely so that it is truly an effective working tool, and not just entertainment.