PM Society Digital Media Awards 2010
New media innovation recognised at the Pharmaceutical Marketing Society's 2010 Digital Media Awards
The Pharmaceutical Marketing Society's 2nd Digital Media Awards proved to be just as successful as last year's inaugural event, with creativity and innovation being recognised in the ever-growing sphere of digital marketing. The ceremony, which took place on Thursday 30th September at The Brewery in Chiswell Street, London, attracted a full house of over 400 guests.
The evening started early with guests arriving from 6.30pm for a champagne reception and networking opportunity, whilst being entertained by the distinctive sound of Latin guitar and vocals. The atmosphere was fantastic, with heightened anticipation no doubt due the buzz generated from last year's event.
Following dinner, Awards Chairman and Vice-chair of the PM Society, Rachel Farrow along with the Society Chair, Sandy Royden took to the stage introduced the ceremony and expressed their delight at having attracted even more guests to the event this year, along with their gratitude for the kind support of sponsors. Sandy explained how feedback from last year's event has led to a number of changes to the both the criteria and the categories. This year the entries were judged against key criteria including strategic approach, innovation and effectiveness; across 10 award categories.
Rachel then introduced Jane Gates from the PM Society's nominated charity for 2010/11, Sebastian's Action Trust.
Jane Gates expressed her thanks to the PM Society for their support and the opportunity to speak at the ceremony. She explained the work of this small but passionate charity and how it was brought about following the death of her son, Sebastian, six years ago. Sebastian's last great wish (expressed only 12 days before he died) was that there could be a holiday home for sick children like him. Since then, Jane has dedicated her time to fulfilling that wish – to build a holiday home for sick children and their families, giving them much needed quality time together and the holiday that can sometimes seem impossible to achieve. In May 2011, ‘The Bluebells' is planned to open, the holiday home that Sebastian dreamed of; built on donated land. The charity needs 52 sponsors to offer £2,500 a year to maintain the project. Jane asked guests not only to consider a donation, but to help identify potential sponsors. For more information on the charity's work visit: www.sebastiansactiontrust.org.
The draw raised almost £5,000 from the generous donations of guests on the night and the charity provided a prize of designer jewellery for the draw, which was won by Oliver Palin.
Audience participation took on a different meaning this year with a new addition to the event – interactive voting. The audience were asked to respond to 10 questions, of which 5 benchmarking questions were set to identify trends in the digital project activities that the agencies present had undertaken. The results of this voting are presented below - to see them in more detail hover over the menu button for the "view fullscreen" option. When the slideshow ends, press your "Esc" key to exit.
Following dinner, comedian Milton Jones provided guests with a hilarious set, delivered in his trademark deadpan style, which was then followed by the Awards themselves. Host for the night was Lord Sugar's aide, and the driving force behind Amstrad's PR success, Nick Hewer. In 1997, Nick sold his PR Company and later in 2004, at the age of 60, he decided he'd retire. Little did he know at that time that Lord Sugar had his sights on a television programme mirroring a US-based business education show fronted by Donald Trump. The Apprentice was born and Nick's career took a very different path than he'd anticipated!
Nick gave some amusing anecdotes about his very personal experience with the pharmaceutical industry, along with some fascinating insights into the business acumen and style that have coloured his long career working with Lord Sugar. Nick went on to host the prize-giving with a key representative from each sponsor company presenting the winners with their award. Photos of the delighted winners proudly displaying their trophies were then taken.
This year's awards were split into the following 10 categories:
- Best Rep Led Digital Selling Tool
- Best Self Directed Digital Selling Tool
- Best Digital Patient Communications
- Best Healthcare Professional Educational Programme
- Best Digital Tools for Clinical Benefit
- Best Healthcare Professional Promotional Websites
- Best Digital Solution for Congress/Symposium
- Best Film and Animation
- Best Integrated Campaign
- Best Internal Communications
The big winner on the night, for a second year, was Creative Lynx who won five awards for projects including the iPhone PASI calculator for Janssen and AstraZeneca's exhibition eDetail. Other winners were: Seven Stones, Story Worldwide, Adventis Health, Big Pink, Halesway and Replay.
After the awards ceremony, celebrations continued at the bar and guests had the opportunity to work off their delicious dinner on the dance floor in the adjoining room.
We would like to say a special thanks to all of our sponsors for their support as they help us to make events such as the Digital Marketing Awards possible.
We are looking forward to building on the success of this year to continue to celebrate innovation in the digital marketing arena and continue to generate the interest that this year's event has clearly demonstrated.
Many thanks to Rachel Farrow, Sandy Royden, and from our Society, Vivien Bennett and Jackie Brown, who contributed so much into making this event such a success.
The PM Society looks forward to welcoming you to further functions over the coming months including its educational, training, networking or other social events. Details of all forthcoming activities are available by clicking here.
Held on: 30/09/2010