Response to “rant title=Awards”

Dear Felix

Your rant seems to fall into seven areas
1. The corruption that must be rife in Awards judging, assuming your rant could somehow mean any submission you’ve made will be now less likely to win
2. The perception of the Awards - or their value - themselves
3. The removal of a category
4. (related to 3) The way categories are determined - “email’ is too boring”
5. The nature of BIMA itself, “in no position to judge…”
6. The relative merit of other submissions, “boring old stuff”
7. The power of crowds and *your* ability to use Facebook to bring ‘us’ down

To 3 and 4. An apology, Felix. email marketing and ‘crm’ was omitted in 2006, the year after you won that category. I can guarantee it’s omission was not based on whether it was “boring” or not. I will find out for us, but I assume it was based on a year on year decline in interest in that category. While I don’t know, what I can apologise for is that this year, we could have included a more explicit category for the various forms of media the marketeer can use - including email, SEO, SEM etc. However, I hope that you did feel able to enter any email campaigns you felt deserved recognition into other categories, namely B2C, B2B, innovation, Craft. Entertainment even!

About 1. The judges judge the work, not whether or not they were once blazed. With your reputation for award-winning work, I wish you luck over the next two weeks.

About 2 - We are working hard this year to make sure that the awards continue to be valued by the industry they acknowledge. I was part of the judging process last year and the work was absolutely outstanding. I am sure the same will be true this year and it goes to show that people like you and I Felix still want to win one of these awards.

About 5. I’m delighted to say that BIMA neither needs or desires to draw from its Exec to judge the Awards. However, it does draw from its membership, which after all, is what BIMA really is. So technically speaking, it is perfectly placed to judge the work. But let’s not be pedantic and move onto 7.

I am pleased that you titled your mail “semi serious” as I’d hate for an attempt to drag BIMA through some kind of Facebook mire to backfire. But of course, if you are determined to do so, surely a good email could reach a greater audience - just ask Claire Swire!