•    Brands must wake up to the need to spend media money to support owned and earned activity in social media
•    Digital becomes part of the in-store retail experience
•    Pure advertising campaigns are finished; they must instead be experiences that are genuinely useful or interesting

The interviews were filmed in December at a reception for the winners of the BIMA Awards. Each of the featured agencies took home a BIMA in 2012, including Grand Prix winner The Mill for its ‘DBA In Space’ campaign for Red Gate, as well as Agency of the Year, ais London, for its work on the One Direction ‘Save the 1Day’ campaign for Sony Music/SyCo.

You can browse all the winning projects in the Digital Book of the Night.

‘Top tips for 2013’ was produced with support from BIMA Awards sponsors Six Degrees Group, Exhilo, Digital Gurus and Transversal, with filming and video production from the experts at C21 Media and Territory Studio.

The BIMA Awards 2013 will open for entries on 1 May with an earlybird deadline of 14 June. Subscribe for updates at www.bimaawards.com

To ratchet up the excitement levels another notch, we’ve today unveiled the nominees for three of the four Premium Awards up for grabs. These are:

Agency of the Year

• ais London
• AKQA
• The Mill
• the OTHER media
• We Are Social

Innovation

• Detica for the ‘Vodafone Retail Application’
• Nile, SapientNitro & Monitise Group for ‘GetCash’
• the OTHER media for ‘Wonders of the Universe’
• We Are Social for ‘Get Well Soup’

Minor Miracle

• ais London for ‘Save the 1Day’
• twentysix for ‘Gallery of Mo’
• We Love Digital for ‘1000 Faces of MS – World MS Day 2012’
• Windfall Films and Numiko (website build) for ‘Foxes Live: Wild in the City’

Justin Cooke, BIMA’s Chairman, said: “Next stop for the finalists is watching for their names in lights on stage at the BIMA Awards this Thursday. The great and the good from across British digital will be watching with them and I send my congratulations and best wishes on behalf of BIMA to them all.”

Nominees for the remaining Premium Award – the Grand Prix – will be revealed live on the night, to the crowd at Bankside Vaults and simultaneously on our Twitter stream: https://twitter.com/BIMA

Wouldn’t you rather be in the room though, making the most of the networking opportunities and experiencing first-hand the GREATEST British night in digital?

The BIMA Awards party takes place at Bankside Vaults in London this Thursday 22 November 2012. Doors open at 7:30pm and tickets can be purchased at http://www.eventelephant.com/bimaawards2012

Headline sponsors of the BIMA Awards 2012 are Exhilo, with generous support from Digital Gurus, Six Degrees Group and Transversal. BIMA also thanks Blueleaf, Bullet, Channel 4, Futureheads, Nugg.ad, Osborne Clark, Parys Communications, POSSIBLE, PRCA, Recruitmentology, Suburb, Syntax Digital, The Drum and Weapon7 for their support.

The BIMA awards are partnered with.net, C21 Media, Chinwag, Communicate, Contagious, Digital Doughnut, Figaro Digital, Mixing Digital, The Drum and The Guardian Media Network, as well as Rewired State and the School of Communication Arts.

The full BIMA Awards 2012 shortlist and premium award nominees can be viewed here: http://bimaawards.com/shortlist

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Q: Are awards all about big brands, big budgets and big agencies?
Puzzlingly that’s generally the perception but in my experience that’s not the case. Over the years that I’ve been involved in the awards I’ve seen the theoretical under-dog triumph on lots of occasions. In fact, sometimes a smaller brand/budget project can have an easier job to do since there’s not so much expectation from the work. Likewise, people tend to forget that there are downsides as well as up-sides to being a big agency/brand – naturally people are generally fairly tribal in nature and often view the big guys with a degree of suspicion. This is one reason that the big agencies have to put so much work into their entries, they have to overcome this suspicion.

One of the reasons that I love being involved in the BIMA awards in particular is that we go to great lengths to ensure that we represent excellence right across the digital spectrum (an example being the year when the grand prix was won by a student project). There are a good spread of categories and this year we’re introducing the ‘Minor Miracle’ award which is specifically designed to give smaller projects and agencies a chance to shine. I can’t speak for other awards but as far as the BIMAs are concerned it’s simple: if you do good work, you should enter.

Q: What’s the key to producing a successful award entry?
There’s no doubt in my mind that many awards entries fail in part because of the quality of their entry.

The good news is that addressing this is simple – just make sure that your entry tells the story of your project clearly and succinctly and that you bear in mind the audience. Judges give up their personal time to do it and – depending on the awards – will have anything between 40 and 100 entries to review meaning that they might spend as little as 10-15 minutes doing their initial assessment of your work. If you can tell your story in 60 seconds then they’ll have more time to look at your work which can only be a good thing for you. One effective way to put together an entry can be to produce a short video (don’t worry, it doesn’t have to be directed by Ridley Scott!) but equally I have seen successful entries that consist of nothing more than a few bullet points.

Q: What’s the value of winning an award?
Plenty of companies function perfectly well without ever winning one but if you are lucky (or clever) enough to win one then the best way to think of it is as another business asset – if you don’t use it it’s worthless but, use it effectively and it could be extremely valuable. The value an award can deliver is varied but here are some of the most common examples of their use:

• Staff Motivation - Receiving an award can be an enormous boost to your team’s morale which, as creative businesses can in turn increase motivation to do further good work.
• Marketing/PR - Whilst winning an award doesn’t guarantee you a raft of new business wins there’s no doubt that being able to use as part of your credentials can be a major asset.
• Recruitment/Employee Value – In the crudest terms, being an award-winning agency can help you to attract new talent and being an award winning practitioner can help you get a higher salary!
• Applications for Funding or Tax Relief – For example, in our industry awards (particularly awards for innovation) can help to support an R&D claim.
• Valuation on Exit – Not everyone will – or even wants to – sell their business but if you think it’s something that might happen to your business one day then the awards you’ve received can be an excellent tool in negotiation.

Q: Are awards just cynical money-making machines that are more to do with selling meals than actually about the awards?
Whilst it’s true that the objective of most awards (including the BIMAs) is to make money for the organisations that run them, it’s important to note that much of the effort that goes into them is put in on a voluntary basis and that, if commercial success was the sole objective then it would probably be commercially more sensible to simply have a whip-round of the volunteers and not bother with running the awards.

Awards therefore are businesses like any other, for them to be sustainable they need to be credible and provide more value to their customers than themselves. In running the BIMA awards we’ve put a huge amount of effort into ensuring this is the case, we’ve done away with the dry black tie event and migrated to an event style that’s fun, accessible and frankly much cheaper to attend. So, yes it’s about value to us – it’s the key revenue stream for BIMA over the course of the year and therefore it’s what enables us to do all the other good work we do for the industry – but it’s much, much, much more important that it has value for you, our customers.

Q: Someone told me that with the xxxx awards you just need to book a table to get nominated and book two to win. How common is that kind of thing?
That’s not something I’ve ever come across in any of the awards I’ve been involved in and with the BIMAs there are no tables so it definitely can’t be true!

Q: What’s it like to be a judge and what’s the value of it?
Being a judge is a hugely enjoyable and rewarding experience and it should be said that being chosen to be a judge for the first time can be a career-defining moment. It’s a great way to network with your peers but probably the greatest value you can get from it is the chance to learn. Looking at other people’s work and accessing its merits is a fantastic way to increase your own skills/knowledge.

It has to be said, there are some down-sides though.

For a start it’s really hard work and requires a significant time commitment – somewhere between 3-5 days in total by the time you’ve attended the briefing, done the online judging, attended the judging day and so-on. Additionally (contrary to an ill-thought-through comment by one of the panelists at the ‘How to win awards’ event) in my experience, being on the judging panel may actually reduce your chances of winning an award. People are a funny, suspiciously-minded lot and therefore if find yourself in the privileged role of judge then you need to be really careful what you say about your competitors. if the other judges don’t happen to agree with you or perceive your comments as being an attempt to sway the jury then it’s likely to be reflected negatively in the scores that you are awarded.

Q: Why didn’t XXXXX project win the award for XXXX last year? it was much better than the actual winner.
This is a common question we get asked there are invariably good and simple reasons why this might be the case:

• The most obvious answer is that XXXXX didn’t actually enter the awards, unfortunately we can only mark what we see.
• It might have been than they did enter but didn’t do a good job of preparing their entry and suffered in the judges eyes as a result.
• It may not have complied with the entry criteria, perhaps it was released just before or after the qualification period.
• Maybe the judges saw something in the actual winner that you didn’t. Entries are confidential and therefore we may have access to additional information.
• Finally, it all comes down to the judging criteria of the awards themselves. Some awards are biased towards creative, others are solely focussed on effectiveness, the BIMAs try to access each category holistically with a bias towards the interactive experience as such our results may differ from other awards.

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Well, there you go! I hope that’s of some use? Please do let us know if you have other questions and I’ll be more than happy to get them answered.

As Chair of the 2012 Awards, it’s important to me that we don’t rest on these laurels and that the process of improvement continues.

One thing I’m often asked about the awards is how someone becomes a judge. Whilst there has always been sound logic behind the make-up of the judging panels we felt that one improvement we could make this year is to be more open about this logic and setup a clear process for selection so that everyone understands what we’re doing and why. That strategy is outlined below and will be of particular interest to our members.

Reserved Seats for BIMA Members
Being chosen as an awards judge is a defining moment in many careers, and it certainly was in mine. Overnight your profile is raised and your credibility enhanced by a tangible sign of the industry’s respect. With this in mind, we want to make sure our members get a fair crack at the whip and have reserved two seats per judging pool (14 places in total) to do just that. We hope the opportunity will not only add to the benefits of belonging to BIMA but also ensure that up-and-coming faces have a better chance of getting onto the panel.

Client-side Judges
As much as seats on the judging panel benefit our members, having your work judged by potential clients is of equal importance to those entering. Even if you’re not among the eventual winners, the exposure that comes from having your project thoughtfully considered by people holding the purse strings at major brands is invaluable. Alongside this, of course, the perspective of client-side judges helps ensure impartiality and brings a dose of realism to proceedings. This year, each judging pool will be chaired by a leading brand representative and we’ve set ourselves the target of having not-less than two client-side judges per pool.

The Judging Process
Once the panel is in place they’ll have their work cut out for them. Judging of the BIMAs happens in two distinct phases – individual online assessments, followed by an all-panel Judging Day. The initial online assessments benchmark the scoring and allow judges to come to their own opinions on each piece of work. These scores are aggregated and the lowest-ranking projects drop out of consideration before the Judging Day, at which the BIMA Award winners are determined. Each specialist judging pool considers a range of categories suited to their particular expertise and the judging is overseen by independent chairs.

Put Yourself Forward?
If you think you have what it takes to join the BIMA Awards 2012 judging panel, we’d love to hear from you. You can apply online and we’ll respond to applications and issue invitations to join the panel by the end of June.

You can read more from the BIMA Award winners’ interviews here. Special thanks to C21 Media for filming the interviews and to Dedipower and Bing Maps from Microsoft for sponsorship support.

BIMA’s chair Justin Cooke welcomed guests with his vision of the event, saying: “It’s about giving our winners the platform to tell their stories as well as giving the Awards a long tail. We’re positioning the BIMAs as so much more than just the celebrations on the night.”

And with help from the expert interviewing skills of David Jenkinson at C21 Media the stories flowed. Nathan Guerra, Director of Innovation at AMV BBDO took the opportunity to enthuse about his agency’s Grand Prix winning project for the Metropolitan Police, describing it as one of the most innovative campaigns he has ever worked on, using the iPhone in a way no one had before.

Profero CEO Dale Gall was still on a high from their amazing night at the BIMAs where they scooped up Agency of the Year and the Creativity premium award, as well as four category wins. Dale freely admitted that the BIMAs were a welcome punctuation point after a difficult period for the agency. “2010 was a very tough year for Profero and, I think, for many agencies. It was evolve or die. Some did, some didn’t.”

Monterosa and Endemol’s co-production for Channel 4 was another strong performer at the BIMAs and Simon Brickle of Monterosa said: “We’re absolutely thrilled to be recognised by awards in two categories. The Million Pound Drop Live has defined live 2-Screen play-along as a new entertainment genre, with millions of people participating in a synchronised game experience over the last year.”

We couldn’t let the day end without collaring our agency stars for their predictions for 2012 – some of which are set out below:

“For a lot of companies, 2011 was about learning about the power of social media and how to use it. 2012 will be the year it’s put into practice.” David Gamble, Creative Director of Saint@RKCR/Y&R

“2012 will be about games and gamification. We’re seeing a number of examples of people gamifying their sites… everyone from Photoshop to foursquare.” Matthew Evans, Director of Solid State Group

“For 2012 I’m personally interested in what marketing can learn from games in terms of fun.” Chris Kempt, MD of Kempt Ltd

“2012 will be the year for people who are bold enough to pioneer. People want rich experiences on their devices, they want content they haven’t seen elsewhere. It’s not a question of re-purposing.” Ian Wharton, Creative Director at Zolmo

We’d like to thank our headline sponsors Dedipower and Bing Maps from Microsoft for supporting the lunch and establishing it as a great addition to the BIMA Awards calendar.

The BIMA Award Winners' Lunch

The Book of the Night is live, photos from SoAmpd and Danny Higgins Photography are available here and you can relive the awards as they happened with The Drum’s live blog and our buzz aggregator, courtesy of the team at SoAmpd.

Congratulations to the winners – we hope your lovely new BIMA Awards made it home with you in the cab and are now taking pride of place in your trophy cabinet. If you’d like to order duplicates contact awards@bima.co.uk and we’ll sort that out for you.

Like all good digital insiders, we love social stats – especially when they show #BIMAAwards made close to 2million impressions. On top of this, we had almost a thousand people in Fabric – smashing! If you want to be part of the story next year, contact henrycarroll@bima.co.uk to talk about sponsorship opportunities for the BIMAs 2012.

But before we start thinking about next year we want to say thanks to everyone who made this year’s awards so successful. Jim Angell and the team at Swim Productions produced the event and we cannot recommend them highly enough. Ditto Tiffany, Charlie and their team at SoAmpd.

Our headline sponsors Dedipower were a pleasure to work with, as were all who supported the BIMAs: Microsoft, Digital Gurus and Green Square, as well as Futureheads, Results International, Round8, Sheridans, Puregenie, iStockphoto, Aditi, Webfusion, Sequence, Fortune Cookie, Courvoisier, The Blueprint, Norton Leigh, Net Benefit, Adobe, Propel, Traffic LIVE, Site Morse, Cookie Reports, Pluck by Demand Media and V&A.

Thanks also to our media partners – reaching half a million digital professionals: The Drum, Figaro, UTalk Marketing, Communicate, .net magazine, C21, Mixing Digital and Chinwag.

All of this wouldn’t be possible without the great support we receive from our sponsors, and for that reason we’d like to extend a very big thank you and share what they have to say about themselves:

Headline Sponsor: Dedipower

The world of digital and creative is epic, it’s ever changing, at the cutting edge of ideas and technology, and constantly challenging the status quo. But how do they become the reality of tomorrow?

We often come across agencies with great talent in their workforce and as a result produce amazing ideas for their clients, but what they don’t always know is how to get those ideas out to the world and make them available 24/7.

At DediPower we believe technology is the backbone for those ideas, it makes them happen, makes them available 100% of the time, no matter how many people want to engage with them. Without that power, those ideas would only be known by those who created it.

As a result of this experience, and our infrastructure, we passionately believe in working with digital and creative agencies to realise the potential of their business, and ultimately bring their great ideas to their clients, and out to the world. That’s why we are delighted to be sponsoring the BIMA Awards 2011. Come and see our ideas, talk to us on the night and let us know what you think.

Microsoft

Share Point

SharePoint For Internet Sites is a product that sits with the Digital Marketing Platform Group within Microsoft. The Digital Marketing Platform Group is focused on working with Digital Agencies and the Marketing teams within customers to build solutions that centre around Customer Experience Management or ‘CXM’. SharePoint has become a great platform to build a Digital Marketing strategy upon; spanning Intranets, Extranets and Websites plus there are now fantastic links with the wider Microsoft business such as Advertising, Bing Maps and Search. Social enterprise has long been a passion of the Digital Marketing Platform Group and with one platform we are able to feed consumer trends and general digital trends into the heart of the business and help you to build compelling digital experiences for users both inside and outside of your organization. Microsoft has always been a strong supporter of BIMA and with the progression of the Digital Marketing vision at Microsoft we hope the collaboration will continue to increase.

Digital Gurus

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Green square

Green square is a corporate finance and advisory practice

We provide insightful and balanced advice to the shareholders of independent media and marketing communications businesses.  We help them prepare their businesses for sale and ultimately achieve the optimum transaction.

We have a passion for the sector.  We have spent our careers working within it, in corporate finance advisory and senior operational roles, and we have personal hands-on experience of building and selling  businesses.  This range of experience sets us apart from our competition and ensures we are uniquely placed to understand the challenges and opportunities within this exciting and creative industry.

Our advice is always carefully considered, well researched and has the benefit of our collective experience. We stay up to date with the latest industry trends and understand our clients’ businesses.

But whilst we’re exceptionally thorough and professional, we’re not cold fish!

We bring enthusiasm and a spark to everything we do.  We provide lighter moments and the odd flash of genius.

We like and respect our clients.  This is reflected in the strong relationships that we build with them and our many testimonials.  Most importantly, we always act in their best interests.

We are proud to support the BIMAs in its recognition of everything that is great about the digital industry – innovation, creativity, effectiveness and its enthusiasm for change and making a difference.  Not forgetting, of course, its fantastic ability to party!

Sheridans

Sheridans is delighted to be supporting BIMA, which we recognise is an important organisation not only for rewarding great work in the UK digital industry, but also for its work in helping to raise awareness of projects and people within the digital sector. In particular, BIMA’s work in encouraging the next generation of digital stars via its Schools Digital Challenge is an area we have happily supported.

Advances in digital technology are creating both amazing opportunities for agencies and also legal challenges, and so it is important for an organisation like BIMA to exist so as to represent digital agencies on matters that affect the industry as a whole, and to bring people together to create solutions.

Sheridans is a leading London-based law firm with over 50 years’ experience of representing some of the biggest names in leisure, media and entertainment.

Our dedicated interactive team is expanding rapidly and provides legal advice to a host of the industry’s top talents, digital agencies and brands. The team participate in a number of events and projects throughout the year to help raise awareness of the opportunities within the interactive sector.

Visit www.sheridans.co.uk, follow us on Twitter @sheridans_news or email us at interactive@sherdians.co.uk for the latest developments on a range of media issues.

istockphoto

In just over a decade, iStockphoto has gone from a small photo-sharing site to the premier destination for royalty-free images, illustrations, and video and audio files, where a file is downloaded every second. The company revolutionised the stock photography business, turning the market upside down, inspiring a string of imitators and establishing a whole new business model: microstock. iStock’s idea was simple: empower the amateur and hobbyist, along with part- or full-time professional artists, by giving them a global platform to share their work.  This has completely transformed the graphic design landscape, making digital content affordable and accessible to a host of new customers and industries.

Today, iStock offers a wide variety of collections to its buyers. The Vetta collection offers highly art-directed exclusive imagery, video and illustrations for the most important projects. In 2011 iStock added a brand new Editorial Collection for journalistic use.

The design community finds inspiration from a content collection approaching 10 million photographs, vector illustrations, Flash, audio and video files that can easily be found on the site. The site’s rapidly growing group of contributing artists have more than 50,000 new files approved each week by a global team of inspectors who adhere to some of the strictest quality standards of any stock agency in the business — microstock or otherwise.

Results International

Results International provides focused, in-depth business advice to owner-managers in the marketing and related technology industries. Our work enhances sustainable profit growth and builds value for shareholders. Results International has unrivalled experience in overseeing and consulting on M&A transactions, having completed more than 200 internationally since it was founded in 1991.

Our global operation means we have a deep knowledge of key markets the world over. This enables us to nurture our business relationships, the very thing that makes our industry work. Above all, we believe in building long-term partnerships that add real value.

We’ve chosen to sponsor the BIMA Awards because they also support the sector and represent the best in digital and technology. As a company that specialises in creating genuine value for both start-ups and mature businesses, we understand the value of a high-profile award and what it can mean for future growth and new business development.

So we’d like to offer our congratulations to all the winners and to all those who have been involved in making the BIMA Awards 2011 a night to remember.

Futureheads Recruitment

Hello. We are Futureheads. We’re all about digital media and all about being specialist recruiters. So when you talk to a Futurehead you talk to a specialist who ‘gets’ what you do and what you’re looking for. We’re all about matching great talent to great jobs, whether it be temp or perm.

One way we stay ahead is through our support for BIMA. We send all our team to BIMA events to hear from key industry figures and to engage in the debate on the same terms as industry practitioners. Our staff love digital they write up weekly blog digests of the news which are always available if you want a quick snapshot into what’s happening. We support BIMA with investment to help the industry prosper and raise its game. Be, one of our founders is on the board, helping with this mission.

It helps that we’ve got experience in digital. Lots of it. In fact, more years experience than we care to remember. Some of you will know founders Rachel Murray, Be Kaler and Gill Arnold – they worked together for over a decade before launching Futureheads in 2009. That’s long enough to learn how to make a really, really good match, and long enough to know how to pass those skills on to a hand-picked team. We now have a dozen recruiters on the front line.

We focus on key skills-sets, each one led by dedicated specialists who understand your discipline in-depth. The Futureheads team is built around our core disciplines: project management, client services, user experience, creative and technical.

Futureheads’ service is organised, professional, swift and, dare we tempt fate, painless. Welcome to Futureheads — we’ll help you get ahead.

Puregenie

Puregenie Digital Recruitment is thrilled to be sponsoring the Travel & Leisure Category at the BIMA Awards. It is a logical fit as many of Puregenie’s clients are in travel and hospitality. We have helped recruit many talented digital professionals in this thriving business sector, who have gone on to make a real contrubution to their employers. Puregenie Digital Recruitment are skilled at identifying high calibre candidates in the following areas: ecommerce directors, marketing directors, digital marketers, seo experts, UX managers, web analysts, paid search specialists, social media managers, and the increasingly important subject of mobile.

Round8

Round8 finds the right people for media and marketing companies across all platforms. We have offices in London and Sydney and have been trading since 1999.

Our teams have been recruiting from Exec to Director-level for years – so we have some outstanding networks and fantastic insight to share with our candidates and clients.

With dedicated teams servicing the following areas, we have structured our whole business around helping the best hirers and talent to connect.

• Sales – roles include Media Sales, Creative Solutions, Sponsorship and Promotions, Business Development

• Agency – within Integrated, Media and Digital Agencies. Roles include Digital and Integrated Marketing, Search, Planning and Buying, Creative, Technology

• Advertising Implementation & Delivery – roles include Advertising Operations, Trafficking, Client Services, Data Analytics and Insight

By promoting massive collaboration between these teams we can ensure that our customers are exposed to the best opportunities and people, from the widest possible cross-section of the market.

We believe this ensures that our customers deal with people who are really embedded in their space.

At round8, we believe our job is about much more than simply presenting people and businesses with options.

Hiring for your team or moving jobs is a big thing. We appreciate that.

Our consultants will do everything they can to give you the insight, advice and the perspective you need to make informed decisions that effect your career.

Norton Leigh

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Propel

Since 2001 Propel London has helped the digital industry to grow by providing a unique, people-focused recruitment service to job-seekers and employers alike.

In an increasingly diverse and expanding digital economy it’s never been more important to work with a recruitment partner who really understands it.  Propel London’s consultants are experts in their specialist areas – design & build, UX & IA, performance marketing, client-side, social media and mobile.

We’re proud to support the 2011 BIMA awards.  Through their tireless work, BIMA has contributed significantly to the success of the digital sector.  These awards provide a great opportunity to recognise the outstanding talent that the British digital industry has to offer, and to celebrate it.

Everyone at Propel London would like to say a huge well done to everyone shortlisted for the awards – your work represents some of the very best of what digital can achieve.  We’re honoured to be a part of recognising that.

The Blueprint

We provide support and guidance to ensure our clients enhance their offering and our candidates find the job they aspire to.

Key support when you need it…

The Blueprint are partnered with the UK’s leading digital, advertising and communications agencies to provide the crucial support needed to enhance the digital and integrated offering for each business. By utilising our network we can pro-actively find the industry’s top people, ensuring we place the best expertise, talent, attitude and personality for the job.

If you’re our candidate…

We ensure we have a complete understanding of what you’re looking for and focus on advising you on what type of opportunities could best suit your requirements and aspirations. We then support and guide you through the process, assisting with preparation and reviews to give you the best possible chance of capturing that ideal job. Our ultimate goal is to make sure you are happy!

If you’re our client…

We offer advice on the talent required to enhance your digital and integrated offering. We have advised many of the UK’s top agencies on how best to grow their digital and integrated resources and in turn help to bring a greater market share in a highly competitive industry.

Fortune Cookie

Headquartered in London, Fortune Cookie is a global, full service digital marketing, strategy and technology company with over 150 staff operating 24/7 across 5 continents and revenues of £12 million.

The world’s leading brands choose Fortune Cookie because we create outstanding digital experiences that make a significant measurable difference.

Our clients include American Express, AEGON, BP, City of London, De Beers, Domestic & General, FIBA, Fitness First, Lawn Tennis Association, informa, Legal & General, National Rail Enquiries, Mail Online, NetJets, RICS, Rio Tinto, Royal Caribbean International, Small Luxury Hotels of the World and UEFA.

Net Benefit

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Webfusion

Webfusion is one of the UK’s leading web hosting groups with 1.4 million hosted websites and 2.7 million registered domains. Offering cost-effective, feature-rich hosting packages for its diverse customer base including everyone from web developers, designers and hobbyists to businesses with complex e-commerce operations, its customers benefit from market-leading security and service.  Features include: 24/7 technical support; managed and cloud hosting; robust Firewall server protection; one click installation; access to FTP accounts and a state-of-the-art data centre.

Webfusion is also part of the Host Europe Group, the largest privately-owned hosting company in Europe, and a Sunday Times Deloitte Buyout Track 100 company. The Host Europe Group also includes 123-reg,  Heart Internet, Host Europe and dynamic-net AG and has a strong International market presence in the US, Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Spain.

Become a fan of Webfusion on Facebook or follow us on Twitter.

Sequence

Sequence is an independent ideas-driven digital agency with offices in Cardiff and London.  Formed in 1995 and with a team made up of 65 talented professionals, we have been listed in the 2011 NMA Top 100 Interactive Agencies list and Design Week Top 100 Consultancies Survey 2011.

We provide strategic, creative and technical services all under one roof. This means that our clients benefit not only from our experience in cutting edge and emerging technologies, but also from our creativity, experience and vision.

Our job is to deliver engaging, inspiring, immersive and successful projects. With clients all over the UK, we work across a multitude of digital marketing platforms, channels and styles of execution for clients of all shapes and sizes.

Whether it’s a campaign microsite, mobile app or content managed website, our core principle of creating “beautiful, clever things” allows us to look at all angles of a client’s business and produce the right work for the task at hand. This ensures that what we deliver not only looks superb but also helps our clients to improve their relationship with their audience and grow the business as they need to.

Pluck by Demand Media

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Traffic LIVE

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V&A

The Victoria and Albert Museum – known as the V&A – is the world’s leading museum of art and design, with collections unrivalled in their scope and diversity. They contain artefacts spanning more than 2000 years of human creativity, in virtually every medium, from many of the world’s richest cultures.

The V&A was established in 1852 on the founding principles of making works of art available to all, and inspiring British designers and manufacturers. Those principles are unchanged and today the V&A’s main purpose remains to enable everyone to enjoy its collections, and to inspire those who shape contemporary design.

Contemporary design has always been at the heart of the V&A’s work and the Museum remains true to its founding mission of promoting excellence in design and manufacturing. It works hard to promote, support and develop the UK creative economy both by stimulating enjoyment and appreciation of design, and by encouraging contemporary designers, acquiring their work, and providing inspiration through its displays.

Sitemorse

For more than a decade, Sitemorse has been the world’s only single solution for web content governance, monitoring, recording and benchmarking and plays a unique role in helping organisations develop their web communications against those of their peers.

With a client base approaching 400 – more than 20 of which are FTSE 100 companies – Sitemorse has offices in the UK and Switzerland, with consultants working in other parts of Europe. Our clients operate in the public and private sector and include local authorities as well as large and small companies.

Sitemorse regularly conducts surveys of public and corporate organisations and  is the foremost consultancy to do such benchmarking and publish the detailed results.

Our unique Index benchmarks, which appear several times a year, provide an up to the minute snapshot of the best and brightest business websites, with insight into which are passing – and  failing – vital tests in performance, compliance, and accessibility.

Our software is used to check the sites of major organisations in a variety of sectors, (for example, FTSE All Share companies, and the UK Top 500 retail companies) to compile an index of who ‘does the web’ best.

Sitemorse began by offering software that allowed users to be sure that their websites worked properly and did not have missing links. Our software has been very much developed in sophistication and offers integration with the content management systems of our clients for pre-publication testing. For many developers Sitemorse has become part of their standard set of tools.

Cookie Reports

EU Law means websites’ need to use cookies responsibly or face legal penalties. But knowing which of these pieces of code are on your site and finding what they do can be difficult.

Cookie Reports offers a unique level of automation and precision to map the ‘cookie landscape’ of your web presence. Our reports will ensure legal compliance, combat data leakage, and improve website performance. We can also create an enterprise-wide active cookie policy to put you in control and keep your visitors properly informed.

Our ability to remotely assess and map individual brand, marketing, product or information sites (from 5 to 4,500) and then prioritize auditing based on likely importance of sites is unrivaled. We can audit 1,450 – 1,875 sites/day with a max throughput of about 9,000.

We are also able to deploy clients / partner portals. All output carries your own branding, contact details, and if required unique content. Results are available in a range of formats for integrating with management, client or service reporting.

Let us demonstrate our capability and help you get started with your FREE cookies summary and a detailed web estate map for you or your client [email bima@cookiereports.com].

Creativity – sponsored by Digital Gurus: Can You Draw The Internet? (Saint@RKCR/Y&R), F-Secure (1,000 Heads), Mini World Record Attempt (Profero), Vodafone: Evolution on Mobile (TBG Digital).

Effectiveness – sponsored by Green Square: ASOS Marketplace (Profero), Jamie Oliver’s Recipes (Zolmo), Lloyds TSB Me (Saint@RKCR/Y&R), Million Pound Drop Play-along game (Endemol / Monterosa), Red Bull Kart Fighter (Kempt), Relentless (Zone).

Innovation – sponsored by Microsoft: adiverse (Start JudgeGill), Heineken Star Player (AKQA), Nike Grid (AKQA, W+K, Mindshare), Mini World Record Attempt (Profero), Wrigley’s 5 Nightjar (AMV BBDO).

For the two remaining premium awards, Agency of the Year and the Grand Prix, you’ll have to wait until Thursday night when the nominees and winners will be revealed live from the stage. To share the excitement, get your ticket here: https://www.eventelephant.com/bimaawards2011

The finalists across 13 discipline categories and 13 sector categories, as well as the three premium awards above, can be viewed here: http://www.bimaawards.com/2011-finalists.php

Thanks to Dedipower, headline sponsors of the BIMA Awards 2011, along with Microsoft, Digital Gurus and Green Square, as well as Futureheads, Results International, Round8, Sheridans, Puregenie, iStock Photo, Aditi, Webfusion, Sequence, Fortune Cookie, Courvoisier, The Blueprint, Norton Leigh, Net Benefit, Adobe, Propel, Traffic LIVE, Site Morse, Cookie Reports, Pluck by Demand Media and V&A.

Thanks also to our media partners – reaching half a million digital professionals: The Drum, Figaro, UTalk Marketing, Communicate, .net magazine, C21, Mixing Digital and Chinwag.

We run the BIMAs as an industry-wide party – so whether you’ve been nominated or not, come along, be inspired by the great work on display and socialise with 1000+ of the big names in digital Britain, all under one roof.

As well as seriously good networking opportunities, the BIMAs are huge fun. We’ve booked Alice Russell (who sold out the Roundhouse four nights in a row recently!) and the jaw-dropping Guilty Pleasures. Your ticket also gets you gastronomic canapés and free drinks tokens, as well as the chance to play with cutting edge kit in the interactive area. As a sneak peek, we can tell you that U-Touch, Xbox Kinect and Dedipower will be there, as will Spotify – taking your playlist suggestions for the opening DJ set and giving out prizes.

SoAmpd will be with us on the night, making sure #BIMAAwards goes crazy on social media and The Drum are providing live blog coverage. Be there to be part of the story!

To encourage you to make a big night of the BIMAs with your clients and staff we’re offering brilliant bulk buy ticket discounts. For example, BIMA members can get 10 to 19 tickets at £50 each; 20-29 tickets at £45; 30-49 tickets at £35; and 50+ tickets at £30!

BIMA Awards – 10 November at Fabric nightclub. Doors open 7:30pm. Tickets from just £30. On sale now at https://www.eventelephant.com/bimaawards2011

Keep up-to-date by following @bima and #BIMAAwards.

Thanks to Dedipower, headline sponsors of the BIMA Awards 2011, along with Microsoft, Digital Gurus and Greensquare, as well as Futureheads, Results International, Round8, Sheridans, Puregenie, iStock Photo, Aditi, Webfusion, Sequence, Fortune Cookie, Kopparberg, Courvoisier, The Blueprint, Norton Leigh, Net Benefit, Adobe, Propel and Traffic LIVE.

Thanks also to our media partners – reaching half a million digital professionals: The Drum, Figaro, UTalk Marketing, Communicate, .net magazine, C21, Mixing Digital and Chinwag.

Enough people have been in touch to ask for a copy of Nick’s deck that we’re pre-empting further requests by making it available to everyone here. If you gather from this that his speech went down exceptionally well, then you’re on the money. Check out his talking points below and also take a look at ‘Welcome to Pine Point’ by The Goggles – one of the interactive projects that Nick singled out for special praise during his review of the digital industry’s year.

It was lucky we had such a great speaker in the form of Nick, as he perfectly captured the attention of an edgy crowd. Nervous audience members were finally put out of their misery by James Bruce (@JayBeeDesign) who did the honours and unveiled the BIMA Awards finalists to cheers from those who made the cut.

James, who is Head of Creative EMEA for Disney online and co-chair of the BIMA Awards 2011 judging panel, told the crowd he was hugely impressed by the rigour and integrity of the judging process, saying: “The passion and fervour of nomination discussion and the breadth of talent on display made for some great debate.”

He also noted that creative was very high across the board this year – not just in the expected categories – and commented on the prevalence of strong mobile entries, saying that “seemingly every major campaign had an iOS element attached in headway towards a truly 360/transmedia proposition.”

It only remained for Justin Cooke, CEO of Fortune Cookie (who was re-elected unopposed for a third – and he says, final – term as BIMA’s Chair) to promise the crowd the “most interactive awards ceremony ever” with collaboration from Spotify, foursquare, U-Touch, Microsoft and others.

The BIMA Awards are on 10 November at Fabric nightclub. Get your ticket today to join the party: https://www.eventelephant.com/bimaawards2011

Sincere thanks to Dedipower, the headline sponsors of the BIMA Awards 2011, along with Microsoft, Digital Gurus, Greensquare, Sheridans, Futureheads,, Results International, Round8, Pure Genie, iStock Photo and Aditi. Thanks also to our media partners: The Drum, Figaro, UTalk Marketing, Communicate, .net magazine, C21, Mixing Digital and Chinwag.

There will be wine, nibbles and networking opportunities galore, as the great and the good of digital gather to hear whether they’ve made it onto the shortlist for a BIMA this year.

LBi London is the venue and doors open at 7:30pm. More information is available here and please RSVP to bridgetbeale@bima.co.uk if you would like to come along. It’s going to be a good night!

BIMA members should attend from 6:30pm for the AGM – if you haven’t received your papers contact agm@bima.co.uk and remember that nominations for the Executive are open until Friday 30 September.

Unveiling the panel, Chris said: “We’re totally blown away by the team of judges we’ve put together for the awards this year – it resembles a who’s who list of the digital hard-core! You’re going to have to be at the very top of your game if you’re going to win a BIMA this year.”

Sponsorship opportunities still exist and if you’re interested in getting your brand in front of 1000+ of the UK’s brightest digital stars, in creative and engaging ways – contact henrycarroll@bima.co.uk or phone 020 7843 6797.

Our media partners include Figaro Digital, C21 Media, .Net Magazine, The Drum, Communicate Magazine, Chinwag and Utalk Marketing – with a combined reach of over 400,000 digital media professionals across Britain. On top of this, we’re planning one hell of a party and promising the most interactive awards ceremony ever!

To help, we’ve created a short video. Hear tips from multi-award winning agencies Saint, Fortune Cookie and LBi and experienced judges Mike Nutley (interactive media consultant), Paul Kemp-Robertson (editorial director of Contagious magazine) and Andy McCormick (editor of Revolution and deputy editor of Marketing magazine).

Follow their advice and there’s a good chance we’ll be handing you a BIMA on 10 November at Fabric nightclub, in front of the great and the good of digital!

The BIMAs were established in 1985 to celebrate and showcase the greatest interactive work being undertaken in Britain, and have now become one of the most coveted Awards and the biggest nights in the Internet industry calendar.

With support from media partners including New Media Age, Figaro Digital, C21 Media, .Net Magazine, The Drum, Communicate Magazine and Utalk Marketing the Awards will reach over 400,000 digital media professionals across Britain.

2011 sees a total of 31 categories across a full range of verticals, platforms and channels sectors, as well as the addition of a new ‘Agency of the Year’ category, to reflect the incredible output of British agencies. Newly appointed BIMA Executive and Former Editor of Revolution Magazine Gareth Jones commented, ‘We have worked hard to try and develop a set of categories that represent the breadth and depth, effectiveness, craft and flair of British digital talent.’

BIMA Chair Justin Cooke added, ‘We are so excited at the prospect of building on the success of last year’s Awards, where we saw a record level of 350 entries judged by 65 industry heavyweights and over 1,000 attendees celebrating at Heaven nightclub. I am particularly excited by our new partnership with Internet Week Europe, now in its second year, and by our venue choice of Fabric – one of the greatest clubs in the World. Last year was so fun I didn’t want to leave, and this year we are aiming to make the BIMAs live and breathe our industry, with the most interactive Award ceremony ever!

To enter the BIMA Awards visit www.bimaawards.com. BIMA Members get up to two free entries and discounts on every subsequent entry. If you are not yet a member, join now from as little at £320 + VAT

If you are interested in judging the BIMAs please email henry.carroll@bima.co.uk, or if you want to reach over 400,000 digital media professionals and engage with them on the night, email henry.carroll@bima.co.uk

Congratulations to:

¤ Unique Leadership Award:                                           Skrill

¤ Best Global Potential Award:                                       Skrill

¤ Most Innovative Company Award:                             Softkinetic

¤ Judges Award:                                                                Wonga

¤ Fastest Growing Company Award:                            InSkin

¤ Fastest Growing Larger Company Award:              Essence

¤ Media Momentum Woman of the Year:                     Holly Tucker and Sophie Cornish (Notonthehighstreet)

¤ Media Momentum Man of the Year:                           Gianluca D’Agostino (Neomobile)

For further information, please see http://www.gpbullhound.com/en/events_detail-strategy_eye

This is the 15th year of the awards, and the aims remain the same; to showcase and celebrate the projects and campaigns that have used interactive media to best effect in delivering business benefits.

The theme for this year’s ad campaign is infographics, inspired by David McCandless’s wonderful book, Information Is Beautiful. And researching the data for the ad has thrown up some interesting stuff. Some of it we kind of expected; we discovered that 83% of last year’s shortlist came from agencies based in London. Some things were less anticipated; 48% of the shortlisted entrants spent less than £100k on their projects.

What was more interesting was when we started comparing the awards entries now to those from ten years ago. Of the entries shortlisted for the 2001 awards, 42% spent under £100k, and the general skew was actually slightly more expensive than in 2010. Some 70% of the shortlisted entries in 2001 came in at under £500k, compared to 76% last year. What’s more, 19% of the shortlist spent over £1m in 2001, compared to 9% last year.

At first glance I found this puzzling. I’d have expected people to be spending significantly more on digital projects now, because digital is so much more central to companies’ business. But maybe the 2001 figures (which are actually for projects launched in 2000) reflect the height of the dot com boom, when companies were spending as much for presence in the online space as anything, rather than for the more rigorous ROI reasons that apply now. If we pulled the data for all the years between 2001 and 2010, I expect we’d see spending figures drop after the bubble burst and slowly climb back to their current level.

As the US baseball coach Yogi Berra once said, predictions are hard, particularly about the future, and the new media age awards were always meant to reward the great work being done at the time, rather than try and pick winners for the future. But it’s interesting a fair few of the shortlisted entrants are still with us after all this time, on both the brand and agency sides. Familiar names like Clock, Rufus Leonard, Cimex, Digitas and Quantum crop up, suggesting that the judges did pick entries from people who not only knew what they were doing at the time, but were able to sustain that through all the changes we’ve seen since.

All of which makes me wonder how this year’s winners will look in 2021.

How to Enter
Online entry is simple and free of charge and the criteria is set below:

• Headquartered in Europe
• At least revenue of EUR 1.5m in the last financial year (2010)

Entry deadline: 4^th March 2010 at www.mediamomentum.co.uk

The event – 19^th May, Barcelona
Companies will then be ranked by their annual revenue growth rate between the three most recent financial years and the CEO’s and founders of the 50 fastest growing companies will be invited to the exclusive W hotel in Barcelona on 19 May, to participate in the CEO Summit and the Media Momentum Awards celebrations.

There will be an interesting mix of business leaders and entrepreneurs from the digital media economy, visionaries and inspiring personalities. We will discuss and brainstorm about relevant topics facing the internet economy and philosophise about the future.

Last year’s event was a great success with 150 of the most influential decision makers from the digital media industry attending. The Top 50 companies in the 2010 list collectively grew their revenue base from €786m to an incredible €1,955m in a 3 year period.

Previous attendees and the Top 50 included representatives from vente-privee.com, Bigpoint, Seatwave, CCP Games, Moneybookers Yahoo, Google, King.com, Net-a-porter, YouGov, TradeDoubler, Shazam Latitude, Vibrant Media, Betfair, The Search Works, Profero, Conchango, Unanimis, LoveFilm, Toptable and many more.

Good luck!

You only have two more weeks to enter the Content 360 competition where you can pitch your game-changing ideas to the world’s most influential multi-platform audience and win development prizes.

MIPTV’s Content 360 Digital Creativity competition is your chance to showcase your newest concepts to the global TV & media industry at MIPTV 2011, 4-7 April in Cannes, France.

Four exciting categories offer your company the unique opportunity to win international recognition, meet new business partners, and secure development contracts from prestigious media groups. FremantleMedia/ RTL Group’s Category winner will be offered a 10,000 Euros Development Agreement to jointly exploit the winning idea and NFB’s winning project will receive a 12,000 Euros development contract. The winners will be announced during a special ceremony party in Cannes on 6 April 2011.

Applications are free to BIMA Members and the entry deadline is 14 February 2011.

A little about Connected Creativity…

Now part of Connected Creativity at MIPTV, Content 360 is not only an occasion to develop partnerships with the global entertainment and media industry present at MIPTV, but also to increase your reach to the mobile & technology sectors represented at the new Connected Creativity Forum.

To learn more about Content 360 and enter the competition, click here

Launched to recognise and celebrate the creativity, craftsmanship and entrepreneurial spirit of the UK’s most talented interactive practitioners, the BIMAs now represent, promote and celebrate an industry employing in excess of 250,000 people, growing at 10 times the speed of the rest of the British economy, and worth over £100 billion a year.*

This year’s Awards have seen a 25% increase in the number of entries, from hundreds of agencies and brands across the length and breadth of Great Britain. Every entry in the 44 categories from Automotive to Visual Design was scrutinised by 60 judges of the highest calibre from across the interactive sector.

The BIMA Awards

To reflect the increasing pervasiveness of the internet, BIMA introduced new vertical categories as well as open data, applications, multi-platform and integrated work.

“It is our firm belief that the BIMA Awards reflect a true celebration of the most creative and innovative interactive work being created anywhere in the world today” said BIMA Chair Justin Cooke.

The coveted grand prix award for exceptional performance was won by Saint@RKRC/Y&R for Recode I Decode – a campaign produced by globally renowned artist Karsten Schmidt to promote the V&A Museum’s first exhibition dedicated to digital art. The campaign was also winner in the Arts and Culture, Government and Public sector, Community, Open Data, Innovation, and Strategy categories. For a full list of finalists and winners click here.

As headline sponsors, Microsoft were on hand to make the Awards as interactive as possible ,enabling guests to experience Kinect for Xbox 360 and Microsoft Surface in their lounge bar haven, along with Windows Phone 7 on giant interactive screens, photo booths. There was also live t-shirt screen printing from Californian artists Brandy Flower and Mike Crivello’s HIT+RUN project. Google looked after the VIP bar, while Chap-Hop superstar Mr.B Gentleman Rhymer re-connected Hip-Hop to the Queen’s English whilst ‘real life’ eye tracking was provided by Acuity-ETS.

Thanks to the support of BIMA’s media partners New Media Age, Figaro Digital, utalk Marketing, Communicate Magazine, The Drum, .Net Magazine and C21 Media, the BIMA Awards will reach over 400,000 digital professionals.

2010 BIMA Awards Headline Sponsors

• Windows Internet Explorer 9
• Windows Phone

2010 BIMA Awards Sponsors

• Doubleclick by Google
• digitalgurus
• The Hospital Club
• Netbenefit
• acuity eye tracking solutions
• EPiServer
• Neoco
• LBi
• sohnar traffic
• iStockphoto
• Nakama
• The Blueprint

On the 23^rd September we are hosting the first ever The Fantastic Tavern Awards.  There’s only three categories so it won’t be one of those long running awards ceremonies and it will definitely not be black tie (unless you want it to be) or at The Grosvenor.

Why do you get out of bed? Is it to make great work? Innovative, perfectly crafted and effective work? Work that you’re proud to show to your peers? Work that deserves recognition?  We’d love to see it!

Enter The Fantastic Tavern Awards here.

London, 9^th July 2010: The British Interactive Media Association (BIMA) announced the winners of the Schools Digital Challenge 2010 at an awards ceremony at Channel 4 studios on Thursday 8^th July.  The three winning schools, Baxter College, Kidderminster, Djanogly City Academy, Nottingham and Homewood School & Sixth Form Centre, Tenterden, Kent, were selected from the thousands engaged with across the country.

The BIMA Schools Digital Challenge is an annual competition for students aged 11-18, held in partnership with key industry organisations, and is part of BIMA’s drive to inspire young people to get involved in the digital industry.  The industry partners include Channel 4, Microsoft, Sky Creative, New Media Age, Econsultancy, SSAT, Speakeasy, Propel Recruitment and Contagious.

This year, schools across the UK were asked to devise a digital solution that provided real practical benefits for their community. The winning entries were judged against five key criteria of creativity, effectiveness, interactivity, teamwork and documentation.

Mirage Islam, Chair of Education and Innovation Group at BIMA says: “This challenge has provided us with an innovative way to bridge the gap between schools and the digital media industry. As young people are growing up in an increasingly digital world, we want them to experience the digital industry at an earlier stage. This competition enables us to lead the way in engaging future talent – encouraging and nurturing the next generation of web designers, developers, new media strategists and social media gurus.”

He added: “We were delighted with the standard of all of the entries but our winning teams managed to create community-spirited, imaginative and enterprising digital solutions.”

The 3 winning entries were:

Djanogly City Academy’s Virtual Academy created an impressive resource for a range of stakeholders using non-verbal navigation with excellent interactive content. Homewood School’s collaborative project on the restoration of the Cavell Van was part of an ongoing living history project and applied digital media as part of a larger community based initiative.

Baxter College’s cross cultural and comparative religions project was a topical idea with a great mix of imaginative online and offline activity and included collaboration with another school.

Projects from Hautlieu School, Jersey and Avonbourne School in Bournemouth were also highly commended. All five schools will be rewarded with long-term links with the digital industry, including access to the combined expertise of BIMA’s members and a pass providing students with the opportunity to experience BSkyB’s creative and news studios first hand.

The competition was judged by BIMA Education and Innovation Group members, Michael Collins, Ann Jamieson and Hal Robinson, Judith Masters, SSAT’s Head of Cultural Networks, and the Client Services team at digital agency Fortune Cookie. The event was attended by senior education dignitaries from academia and government sectors as well as key members from the digital industry.

For further information and photography from the event please contact Naomi Stern, Westgate Communications on 01732 779087 or at naomi@westgatecomms.com. For more information about BIMA and the Schools Digital Challenge, please click here.

A panel of experts has put together a shortlist, and BIMA is delighted to announce the shortlist of established and emerging digital luminaries which includes BIMA’s own Chair, Justin Cooke.

The Hospital Club 100 established digital shortlist in full…

Andy Budd & Richard Rutter – Founders, ClearLeft
Alex Balfour, Head of New Media, LOCOG
Anna Bateson, Head of Marketing EMEA, YouTube
Pete Cashmore, Founder & CEO, Mashable
Blake Chandlee, Vice President EMEA, Facebook
Justin Cooke, Chair & CEO, BIMA & Fortune Cookie
Mark Cridge, CEO Glue London
Stephen Fry, Writer & Actor
Ashley Highfield, MD, Consumer and Online UK, Microsoft
Christer Holloman, CEO, First Tuesday
Julie Howell, Director of Accessibility, Fortune Cookie
Erik Huggers, Director, Future Media & Technology, BBC
Martha Lane Fox, Champion & Co-Founder of Lastminute.com, Inclusion Task Force
Tom Loosemore, Head of 4iP, Channel 4
Ray Maguire, Senior VP/MD, Sony Computer Entertainment UK
Natalie Massenet, Founder/Executive Chairman, Net-a-Porter
Julie Meyer, CEO, Ariadne Capital
James Murdoch, Chairman & Chief Executive, News Corporation
Danny Rimer, Partner, Index Ventures
Taryn Ross, Co-founder & Editor-in-Chief, urban Junkies
Oliver Schusser, Senior Director, iTunes Europe, Apple
Reshma Sohoni, CEO, Seedcamp
Rory Sutherland, Vice Chairman, Ogilvy/WPP
Richard Titus, Head of Digital, Daily Mail
Shane Walter, Creative Director, onedotzero

The Hospital Club 100 emerging digital shortlist in full…

Mike Anderson, Found, App Factory
Tim Bradshaw, Digital Media Correspondent, Financial Times
Ross Cairns, Founding Partner & CD, Erasmus
Tristan Celder, CEO & Founder, Zolmo
Iain Dodsworth, CEO, TweetDeck
Daniel Ek, Founder & CEO, Spotify
Oleg Fomenko, Co-Founder & CEO, mFlow
Evan Grant, Founder, Seeper
Rupert Loman, Co-Founder, Eurogamer
Matt Pyke, Creative Director, Universal Everything
Tim Rodgers, Founding Partner, rehabstudio
Andrew Shoben, Founder, Grey World
Stan Stalnaker, Founder, The Hub Culture
Naomi Williams, Head of Digital, Darling Department

It’s now up to you to decide which FIVE will make it into the final list which will be published in The Independent. So what are you waiting for? Make your vote count!

There are lots of fantastic awards that celebrate and showcase the digital and interactive industry in Britain. However, alongside the BIMAs – cough – I have huge respect for the new media age Effectiveness Awards.

The reason is in the name. Since their launch in 1997 the Effectiveness Awards have focused on the business benefits interactive media can deliver, on results and return on investment. They have also recognised the importance of innovation, the fact that interactive media doesn’t just transform existing channels of communication, it allows the invention of entirely new ones.

Over the past 13 years, the Effectiveness Awards have showcased groundbreaking companies, game-changing websites and business-transforming marketing campaigns.  As a former winner I can honestly say that winning an Effectiveness Award was one of the proudest moments of my career.

If you are serious about interactive media then I strongly recommend you enter but be quick – the deadline is 10th March.

But don’t just take my word for it – new media age have created a cute little video of previous winners explaining why winning an award meant so much to them. You can watch it here.

The categories cover all the disciplines necessary in the digital marketing process, and are open to brand-owners, agencies, marketing services providers and individuals. The deadline for entries is approaching, so be sure to complete your entry by Thursday, 3 December 2009.

For a full list of categories and to make your entry online visit www.revolutionawards.com

Well, I doubt I’ll win that one, it’s sure to be a tough category with plenty of strong contenders, but I can tell you that today has been a little bit of a struggle to say the least…

Through sheer force of will and due to popular demand we’ve managed to remember how to turn on our computers and published the results on the awards site. Congratulations are certainly in order for the lucky winners but I really hope that everyone had as good a time as I did. It was wonderful to see the place packed to the rafters.

As I said last night we were really ambitious with the awards this year, we gave ourselves three objectives, to make the awards more Relevant, Accessible and Rewarding and I’m really pleased to say that we did pretty well!

• We represented a wider range of the industry with 37 awards.
• We had 30% more entrants than last year
• The attendance records of previous years were shattered with well over 700 people on the guest-list!

It took the support of a great many people to make it happen and it would be difficult to overstate how grateful I am to the awards team, the BIMA exec, our partners and of course our wonderful sponsors but most of all I’m very grateful to those that entered and attended, without you we wouldn’t have an awards at all, you made it a truly memorable event. Thank you all and I hope to see you there next year!

Party info here.

Buy tickets here.

Be there!

Don’t forget to vote for your favourite Blog
This year the Best Blog award will be decided by a public vote. Please consider the fantastic nominees and vote for your favourite at http://www.bimaawards.com/categories/best_blog/

And here’s the full list to choose from, in alphabetical order.

http://www.blendingthemix.com
http://boingboing.net
http://broadstuff.com
http://www.crackunit.com
http://www.econsultancy.com/blog
http://facesinplaces.blogspot.com
http://www.formfiftyfive.com
http://www.holisticsearch.co.uk
http://www.madebymany.co.uk
http://www.niffnaffntriv.com
http://www.wearesocial.net

Posted by Alastair Duncan, BIMA 2009 Awards committee.