Marketing Society Awards following trends...

The annual Marketing Society Awards (held this year on June 7th), are closing their voting for 2010's "Best Of" one week today.

In an interesting twist, and in addition to previous years, this year the awards are ushering in some new, more inspiring categories. In a move to keep people positive even though we are still in recession (although some pundits would have us convinced we are out of it... house prices rising, Amazon reporting a 70% Christmas profit etc), new categories have been introduced to show how companies have coped in these difficult times. Categories such as marketing communications on a shoestring and e-commerce show a move towards rewarding "cheaper" methods of marketing. Other categories have also been announced, keeping in line with the top trends of 2009 and 2010 - new brand, digitally-led communications and employee engagement.

Interesting stuff, and showing an industry recognised move away from traditional marketing in favour of newer, technology driven methods. It seems that marketing agencies are changing the way they work - or at least adding to it - and opening up opportunities for digital and brand marketeers who can effectively take existing marketing channels and expand on them to reach a new market. All good news for recruiters who work within this arena - like us! - and who are already recruiting digital and online marketing professionals for their clients.

Especially encouraging is the marketing communications on a shoestring category, which will hopefully go a long way towards assuring small and medium sized business - or larger ones suffering budget cuts - that they can still carry out a successful campaign without spending a lot.

It will be very interesting to see who comes out top at the Awards for Excellence ceremony. Last year's winners included Thomson Reuters, McCann Erikson and WCRS, so the competition is high. With these new categories announced though, will it be new companies blagging the awards, or will previous winners have changed strategies to come out on top again, just in a new area?

See www.www.marketing-society.org.uk for more information.

UK ahead in Digital Marketing

A report by Ofcom (16/12/09) reveals that the UK is "officially one of the world’s most advanced countries when it comes to digital communications", according to Marketing Week. Good news for digital marketers - they can continue to take advantage of the already existing array of digital media. The marketing industry has recognised that interaction between online and offline needs to be stepped up to keep in control of communications in this ever-changing technological world. ITV's hugely successful online monetisation of the ever-popular (if contentious, and possibly responsible for most Saturday and Sunday night rows in the UK over the past few months) X Factor is proof of the massive impact of digital media. A record 19m people tuned into the final, and ITV have reported that their X Factor page saw an average increase of hits, unique users, and video views - the latter up 61% from last year. Securing online sponsorship from TalkTalk and Kleenex, ITV also managed to keep up the growing interest in the weekend TV shows. It's all about the brand. And best of all, an ITV Player Facebook App is due out any time now, to bring the digital domination full circle. It won't be on MY Christmas wishlist, but what do I know? It's obviously the way to go, and it won't be long before other organisations jump on the bandwagon - it works!

Want to know the top digital marketing strategies for 2010? Look no further. Last Exit (a Digital Strategy, Marketing and Design agency) have told UTalk Marketing theirs, which include: Facebook replacing personal email, mobile commerce really starting to kick off, services like Facebook Connect and OpenID enabling us to have one log-in for every site, self-efficiency through networking, crowd sourcing and info-art (capturing and visualising information in an artistic fashion). It's sounding good! Social network sites will of course continue to be a massive source of information, sharing knowledge and promoting your brand, as well as enabling marketers to keep an eye on what's on trend out there. The people have perhaps never had so much consumer power - with the ability to instantly send a message out to potentially thousands of people around the globe, each of us can have some influence on what, and how, we buy.

If digital marketing is going to continue to grow in 2010, then it seems that the marketers will need to up their game and deliver even more in terms of reaching, persuading and retaining their target markets. But the means are out there, so it shouldn't be a problem.

Rachel Lawrence