There have been three Chairmen of the WLA. The original Chairman was Ron Spring followed by Dale Bunnel and now Tony White who has held the position for 6 years. The judging was originally carried out at alternate venues in Europe, America and Asia. This has now evolved into the judges meeting just before Labelexpo USA (Chicago) or Labelexpo Europe (Brussels). Each of the associations supplying one judge each (originally two).

The only route to entry for the World Label Awards Association is through a national association e.g. FINAT, TLMI, JFLP, LATMA, SALMA which has been accepted as a full member of the World Label Association. It is not possible for individual printers to enter independently. One of the rules for submitting an entry is that it must have won an award in one of the accepted associations own awards competition and that it is submitted by that association.

Since 2003 the Australian label association (LATMA) has been participating along with SALMA (the New Zealand association). The Indian association (ILMA) did take part for one year only, so there are high hopes that they will become a permanent member of the WLA in the near future. The chairman is trying to persuade the national organisations of other large countries e.g. Russia, China South America to take part.

For many years the Awards competition focussed on the main printing and converting processes. Since 2002 end use classes have been added which include wine labels, cosmetics, innovation and coupons etc. It is expected that the competition like the World label Association will change to meet the different challenges of the future label markets.

Over the past few years the World Label Awards Association has gained international recognition for the high quality of its award winners. In order to further promote the WLA this book will be circulated to an even wider audience than previously thought possible. Winning an award is used by many converters as a marketing tool to promote their services to a quality conscious end user market.