Claim Your Prize
Speaking of successes, it’s time once again to submit your best digital efforts for this year’s Interactive Marketing Awards. We want to recognize the most effective online marketing and promotional efforts of the last year by choosing the most outstanding entries in eight categories: promotional Web sites; viral promotions; mobile marketing; campaigns using new media like social nets or blogs; Internet sampling or couponing; Web loyalty marketing; search marketing; and e-mail-based promotions. One overall winner will be chosen from among the eight category winners. You can read the competition rules or enter a campaign online until Feb. 15, 2008, by clicking through to http://promomagazine.com/awards/iaawards. Winners will be honored at a gala during the Interactive Marketing Summit held April 30 to May 1 in Las Vegas. Submit and get the credit you deserve!
Related Topics: Promo Trends
February 9th, 2008 at 3:52 pm
Brian,
I was a little disappointed with one of the rules for the Interactive Marketing Awards. I’m thrilled to see Promo recognize the importance of interactive, but I am not sure Promo is quite embracing the mind shift required for interactive marketing compared to more traditional media.
My gripe is with the rule that requires campaigns “must have ended in the 12 months prior to December 31, 2007.” This is VERY much a traditional, old school way of thinking.
Search Engine Marketing (one of your categories) doesn’t end–it’s a constant for brands. (It’s possible a site may end and thus the search engine marketing efforts would cease, but short-term SEO for short-term sites is not the way to win at Search Engine Marketing.)
Email Marketing (another one of your categories) is best used to create engagement over time. The best email marketers don’t do “campaigns” (with an end) but create relationships based on the value communicated via email over long periods of time.
As a more concrete example, one of the better uses I’ve seen of SMS (another of Promo’s categories) is the MyCokesReward program, which allows consumers to text in their codes for the Coca-Cola loyalty program. This program started in 2006 and was just extended to 2009. Should Coke and ePrize have to wait until 2009 when the program ends to submit this campaign for a Promo award?
Speaking of loyalty programs (yet another of Promo’s Interactive categories), my own agency launched a very successful social network with loyalty and participation rewards for a CPG brand earlier this year. But since the program is a success, it is still running–which makes it ineligible for a Promo award.
The idea of discrete campaigns with launch and end dates strikes me as very old fashioned in the new experiential and interactive landscape. I respect Promo for offering the Interactive Awards, but I’m not sure the rules are designed to recognize what really works in interactive marketing.
Augie Ray
Managing Director - Experiential Marketing
O: 414.271.4001 ext. 308
O: 800.272.3070
Fullhouse
It’s in the experience.
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