With just over 1 week remaining until the entry deadline for the prestigious IPM Awards 2024, the time to shine is now. This is your opportunity to showcase your outstanding work, celebrate your achievements, and stand a chance to claim one of the highly sought-after IPM trophies.

After the resounding success of last year’s event, which saw a sell-out crowd, it’s evident that the promotional marketing industry is brimming with remarkable campaigns. These campaigns play a pivotal role in driving brand success, fostering customer loyalty and engagement, and, of course, boosting sales.

Whether your expertise lies in promotional incentive campaigns, competitions, immersive experiential initiatives, or collaborative brand partnerships, the IPM Awards categories cater to a diverse range of accomplishments.

Its time to get moving; the deadline is Wednesday, May 8th, at 4:00 PM.

Don’t miss out on the chance to be recognised for your excellence in promotional marketing.

Enter the IPM Awards 2024 today and take your place among industry trailblazers.

For all category information visit https://theipm.org.uk/awards-2024/

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The IPM are delighted to launch the 2023 IPM Awards, celebrating the success, innovation and creativity that is carried out right across the promotional marketing industry.

This is your chance to recognise the outstanding campaigns and showcase the achievements delivered by you and your team. Find out more.

This year the IPM celebrates its 90th year, and we look forward to getting together with you all to celebrate all the incredible campaigns that have been delivered.

This year, our categories reflect our long-standing IPM awards with the reintroduction of sectors and our member community groups across the promotional marketing spectrum.

Don’t delay, you have until 31st March for the Early Bird Deadline. For more information on this year’s awards including pricing and eligibility criteria, please visit our website or click here to register on our awards platform and start your entry.

We wish you all much success in this year’s IPM Awards.

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Marc Rigby of MRM looks at the relevance of Promotional Marketing to today’s marketing industry

Part of my misspent youth was dedicated to undertaking a degree in Marketing. How shiny and new it all felt back then in the 1980s, with brand spend all hovering above and below some imaginary line.

I chose below the line. Cash, holidays and cars. Neck labels, fix-a-forms and scratch panels. Free flights, treasure hunts and soft toy Labradors. Activity so impactful in its imagination and creativity that sometimes it didn’t even need a press release to make the national news.

Fast forward 18 years into the new millennium and the chance to assess where the trends of integration, omnichannel and the like have taken the old trouper that is Promotional Marketing. And no better place to do that than at the 2018 IPM awards, particularly as MRM was a sponsor this year.

But first, some context. To paraphrase Lord Black of Brentwood in his excellent introductory speech at the Awards, “I have never known such a time of change and flux.”

An economy showing marginal growth with Brexit concerns and growing inflationary pressures, dictatorial government legislation and public health concerns.

After a decade of dominant price promotion activity there is evidence of the usurping impact that EDLP pricing is having in the shape of the sales strategies of German retailers Aldi and Lidl.

And look at the fact that retailers such as Asda, Ikea, Next et al chose to step away from the bun fight that is Black Friday. It is low prices not short term price offers that is winning the promotional day.

So, can added value promotions still have a role to play in building the all-too-important brand equity?

Promotional Marketing as a marketing multiplier

What this year’s entrants consistently demonstrated is that their campaigns defined promotion as less about a proven collection of techniques to drive sales and more about the role Promotional Marketing can play when it has the chance to contribute to the marketing multiplier effect that boosts a campaign’s impact and how its customers really begin to engage with it.

What do I mean by that last statement? That campaigns truly reach another level when a great idea is founded in a brand truth and delivered to a consumer as a total brand experience.

Take the immense piece of work that is Lucozade Energy and TBK Group’s ‘Unstoppable Bottle’ – a multi award winner at the 2018 IPM Awards (see the picture above). Product packaging uniquely adapted to the activity. Check. Product sampling. Check. Relevance of activity to brand proposition. Check. Amplification of activity with advertising and social media. Check. Tangible motivating reward. Check. Add the fact that the activation was the first of its kind and it was delivered flawlessly achieving outstanding results, and you have a deserved winner. And, in striking a sensory, emotional, relevant and behavioural chord with the audience, it truly delivered a brand experience.

Clearly, promotional success need not be as reliant on retail presence as it once was. Packaging still remains a primary medium to communicate through, even if the power of the retailer’s own brand limits the opportunities to stand out in store. Getting listings and facings is a hard and often expensive challenge for any underperforming brand. Today’s marketer has a number of channels to drive communication of a promotion. Digital activity can undoubtedly help to build your story and promote the activity to a targeted audience. Hell, it even serves as an ideal place to store your terms and conditions. But it can also very quickly undermine your best efforts if your activity doesn’t pass the scrutiny of your consumers.

Not that this was a problem for another award winner. Nestlé KitKat and ZEAL Creative’s personalised KitKat packs proved how the public’s appetite for personalisation can be integrated into an established brand’s packaging.

So I hope I am not alone in concluding from this year’s crop of winners that, within the armoury of marketers, Promotional Marketing remains a trusted and effective weapon. And whilst the idea at the heart of any marketing campaign should be embedded in the brand proposition, creativity can only truly thrive with the support and expertise of practitioners who understand the importance of planning, insight and how best to manipulate the Promotional tools; not to merely drive sales but also deliver brand experiences that challenge and engage the audiences they seek to reach.

At MRM, we like to think we are defined by our services but measured by our results.  That is a statement that should be a maxim for our whole industry.

Marc Rigby is Managing Director of Multi Resource Marketing Ltd (MRM), a marketing services agency celebrating its 25^th anniversary this summer. MRM is a sponsor of the IPM Awards 2018.

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Lucozade and TBK Group collected the trophies for Brand Owner of the Year, Agency of the Year and the coveted Grand Prix Award at The IPM Awards 2018 last night, the biggest networking event of the promotional marketing industry year.

This year’s winners, which were announced at the IPM’s black-tie Awards Gala on Thursday 14th June at the London Hilton Park Lane, showcased and celebrated the very best in creativity and effectiveness in the promotional marketing industry.

The evening commenced with opening addresses from Lord Black of Brentwood, President of the IPM, and John Sylvester, the IPM’s Chairman and Chairman of Sodexo Benefits & Reward Services UK, while the host for the event was comedy superstar, Russell Kane.

Lucozade was named as Brand Owner of the Year, after campaigns for sub-brands Lucozade Sport, Lucozade Energy and Lucozade Zero collected five Gold awards, three Silvers and the Grand Prix (for Lucozade Energy’s ‘Unstoppable Bottle’ campaign).

The Grand Prix is chosen from all of the Gold winners in the IPM Awards 2018 by a Final Judging Panel. The winner is selected by anonymous vote, and this year the vote went to the ‘Unstoppable Bottle’ campaign.

All of the Lucozade trophies were for campaigns created by agency TBK Group, which also took two more Silver trophies for the ‘£10 million Giveaway for Carphone Warehouse – this haul cemented the title of Agency of the Year 2018.

Other agencies taking away multiple trophies from the IPM Awards 2018 include Savvy Marketing (five Golds and three Bronzes), ZEAL Creative (five Golds, two Silvers and four Bronzes), Leith Links (three Golds and two Silvers) and Brass (two Golds and a Bronze).

The full list of winners is on the IPM website, and you can click here to download the Winners’ Book for the IPM Awards 2018.

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The IPM COGS Awards 2018, the awards and recognition programme for service agencies – the providers of specialist services which are used to build promotional campaigns – is now open for entries. The entry deadline is July 19 2018.

The Institute of Promotional Marketing (IPM) launched The IPM COGS Awards eight years ago as a recognition programme for the work of specialist services agencies, to run alongside the IPM Awards, which are for creative agencies.

Richard Pink, Head of Awards at the IPM, says: “The IPM COGS is the most important awards programme for the promotional industry’s service agencies – they give deserved recognition to the companies behind the scenes who make sure that everything runs like clockwork. They are the awards for the unsung heroes of our industry.”

Entry is open to any company from a range of business sectors which support great promotional marketing campaigns – handling, print, staffing, digital, mobile, event and risk management, to name but a few.

Companies do not have to be IPM members to enter (except for the IPM COGS Awards 2018 Service Agency of the Year Special Award, which is only open to IPM members). IPM members enjoy the advantage of paying lower entry costs, however.

The online awards entry platform has been updated and streamlined, to make the entry process even easier than in previous years. In order to submit an entry, you will need to register for this new awards platform – https://theipm.awardsplatform.com/

The IPM – the marketing industry trade body which represents the interests of brands and organisations which use promotional techniques to target their audiences and also of the agencies and service providers which advise them – is encouraging members and non-members alike to seize the opportunity to show the world how their contributions have helped create world-class campaigns.

Now in its eighth year, The IPM COGS awards programme is constantly setting benchmarks and driving up the standard or promotional campaigns.

A full list of the 2017 winners can be found on the IPM website. 

The full list of categories for The COGS Awards 2018 is below:

• Coupons
• Print Management
• Risk Management
• Digital
• Promotional Merchandise
• Experiential and Event
• Handling and Fulfilment
• Staffing
• Direct Marketing
• Loyalty
• Prize, Incentive and Reward
• Innovation
• Multi Territory

In addition to the industry and sector categories, there are three special awards:

• The IPM COGS Awards Service Agency of the Year
• The IPM COGS Awards Breakthrough Company of the Year
• The Grand Prix

Information on the criteria for each category and how the special awards are selected can be found on the IPM website. Alternatively, download the IPM COGS Awards 2018 Handbook which also includes details of how to enter, timings and costs.

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The Institute of Promotional Marketing (IPM) has announced the shortlist for The IPM Awards 2018, the promotional marketing industry’s most prestigious recognition programme.

Richard Pink, Head of Awards at the IPM, says: “We’re delighted to reveal The IPM Awards 2018 entries which have been selected by our first stage judging panels as being worthy of consideration for a Bronze, Silver or Gold trophy, or for one of our three special Awards. Our awards programme showcase the latest and greatest campaigns and work being delivered within the promotional marketing industry. We’re looking for those exceptional promotional campaigns that have displayed effectiveness, creativity and innovation in their field. We want to recognise and reward the blood, sweat and tears that go into delivering the best that promotional marketing has to offer.”

The IPM Awards 2018 shortlist – which can be seen in full on the IPM website – shows the breadth of mechanics, techniques and channels covered by promotional marketing, including classic promotions, shopper marketing, experiential marketing, partnership marketing, digital, and motivation and incentives.

The winners of the coveted IPM Awards – Bronze, Silver, Gold and the Specials, the Brand Owner of the Year, the Agency of the Year and the Grand Prix, for the best campaign of 2018 – will be revealed at The Awards Gala Dinner on 14th June 2018 at the London Hilton, Park Lane. Table Bookings are now open for what will be the biggest networking event for the promotional marketing industry in 2018.

The IPM Awards are the premier recognition platform for the UK promotional marketing industry and have been going for more than 40 years. The Headline Sponsor for the IPM Awards 2018 is Sodexo.

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Great marketing campaigns don’t happen without clients willing to risk going out on a limb, says Andrew Rae of The Black Tomato Agency

My cousin and I share a long running joke. Whenever we see an off-the-wall advertising campaign, hear the ludicrous name of a new band or are told the plot line to a forthcoming farfetched film, we look at each other and say: “Imagine the faces in the presentation when this was pitched!”

For example, imagine the convincing and coercing you would have to do to get ‘Snakes on a Plane’ off the ground…

Or, for an example from the advertising world, imagine ad agency VCCP’s pitch to the Compare the Market marketing team for the ‘Compare the Meerkat’ TV campaign. TV ads featuring an aristocratic Russian meerkat called Aleksandr Orlov, annoyed because people were visiting their site – www.comparethemeerkat.com – when they were really looking for car insurance?

Yet Aleksandr and his family and friends have become the backbone of one of the most successful marketing campaigns in the financial services sector ever – and the promotional element has seen more than a million meerkat toys handed out to people as rewards for taking out a range of Compare the Market insurance products.

The Meerkat campaign launched in 2009; within a very short period of time, comparethemarket.com was ranked as the fourth most visited insurance website in the UK, up from 16th in January 2008, while the site’s overall sales doubled. By 2010 the site had increased its market share by 76%, where competitors’ share had fallen by up to 30% over the same period. 700,000 Facebook fans, 22,000 followers on Twitter, Coronation Street sponsorship and rumoured record deals later it is widely regarded as one of the most successful campaigns of the last 10 years.

But can you imagine the faces in the presentation when this was pitched?

VCCP has won huge numbers of industry awards for the Meerkats; but in reality should we be thanking someone else for giving us Orlov? I think we should. Hats off to the client.

To have the absolute vision, the trust in a supplier, the confidence, the ‘arm-chancery’ to throw caution to the wind and completely commit to someone’s else’s wild creativity is where the real credit should lie.

Anybody who, like us, has won their fair share of industry awards will be very, very aware that the real winners are the clients. They are the ones who allowed us the free reign to be creative, to suggest untried techniques, to do what we do best.

We work with some of the biggest names in their industry sectors; it is widely believed that the larger the brand, the more risk adverse they are and the harder it is to guide them out of their comfort zone. But that is exactly what our role as agencies and suppliers should be – to convince our clients that we can help them by doing something unique and different and that they should trust our ideas.

Think back 11 years to 2007. A TV ad starts with a close-up of a gorilla. Phil Collins’ “In the Air Tonight” plays in the background. The camera pulls back to reveal the gorilla is sitting in a music studio. It sniffs. It rolls its neck, loosens its shoulders… And then it starts drumming.

It is hard to forget the impact that the Cadbury’s Gorilla ad had in 2007. But just imagine that client pitch. Created to convey the message that “all communications should be as effortlessly enjoyable as eating the bar itself,” the ad was the centrepiece of a £6.2 million campaign. And in 2016, it was voted the UK’s favourite ad of all time in a poll conducted by Campaign magazine.

This is quite possibly the best example of a brand taking a massive (albeit calculated) leap outside of its comfort zone.

But did it change behaviour, and was it a success?

The commercial was uploaded to video sharing website YouTube shortly after it first aired, and was viewed over 500,000 times in the first week. As of November 2007, it has been viewed over six million times. Cadbury reported that sales of Dairy Milk had increased by 9%. A YouGov poll showed that 20% more people looked favourably on the brand in the period after the advert’s general release than in the previous period. It won a host of awards, including Pica d’Or for Film 2007, the Grand Cristal at Festival de la Publicité de Méribel and Gold at the British Television Advertising Awards 2008.

Wonderbra even created their own version of the film, with the Cadbury slogan, “A glass and half full of joy,” being replaced with “Two cups full of joy.”

To use a phrase that has now become common parlance, the point I am making is ‘simples’. Creative campaigns are nothing without the progressive attitude and confidence of our clients. Confidence in a) being bold and setting themselves apart from their competition and b) confidence in their suppliers to make it happen.

So next time you see the results from a prestigious industry awards scheme – like the IPM Awards – or you see a brillant piece of creative marketing, make sure you credit the clients as well as the people who put the campaigns together. They’re the ones whom deserve the applause, because they’re the ones who put their brands on the line.

Without courageous clients, our greatest ideas will always remain just that – ideas.

Andrew Rae is Head of Promotional Marketing at the prize and rewards specialist The Black Tomato Agency, which in 2017 won Gold, Silver and Bronze in the Prize, Reward and Incentive category of the IPM COGS Awards for the second year running. The Black Tomato Agency creates unique, brand-relevant travel incentives and reward programmes around the world, tailored precisely to the client’s audience and specific needs to obtain maximum ROI.

The Black Tomato Agency is a member of the Institute of Promotional Marketing, and Andrew Rae was elected to the IPM’s Board in December 2017.

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Multi-award winning independent brand experience agency ignis has appointed Asha Kanhai as Business Development Manager.

Kanhai has worked in the marketing industry for 15 years. Her experience covers time at agencies including Field Day (formerly Arnold KLP), The Marketing Store and Summit, as well as a previous stint at ignis. She has worked on brands including 7UP, Fruit Shoot, Mars, Mattessons Fridge Raiders and Bordeaux wines.

Stephanie Whitaker, Managing Director of ignis, says: “We are absolutely thrilled to have Asha back.  Her role is to continue nurturing new business connections across a client portfolio she is already familiar with as well as developing new client relationships.”

ignis is a multi-award winning independent brand experience agency based in Fulham. Over its 29-year history, it has worked for a wide range of clients ranging from Jameson Whiskey, Sheraton Hotels and Fuller’s to Betfair and Cuticura. A member of the Institute of Promotional Marketing, ignis won two Gold trophies and a Silver for its #JamesonBeOriginal360 experience work for Pernod Ricard Travel Retail and Jameson in the IPM Awards 2017; the same campaign then went on to win a Silver and a Bronze in the pan-European IMC Awards.

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The Institute of Promotional Marketing (IPM) has officially launched The IPM Awards 2018 Call for Entries, with an updated categories list aimed at showcasing and celebrating the best of the promotional marketing industry.

Richard Pink, Head of Awards at the IPM, says: “We’re delighted to announce that The IPM Awards 2018 are now open for entries. Our awards showcase the latest and greatest campaigns and work being delivered within the promotional marketing industry. It doesn’t matter if you’re a member of the IPM or not – what we’re looking for is those exceptional promotional campaigns that have displayed effectiveness, creativity and innovation in their field. We want to recognise and reward the blood, sweat and tears that go into delivering the best that promotional marketing has to offer.”

Richard Pink adds: “This year we are delighted to welcome back Sodexo as our headline sponsor. We would like to thank Sodexo and all of our other Awards sponsors for their on-going commitment and support.”

There are 32 categories to choose from, covering a broad range of industry sectors, media channels, objectives and techniques, and campaigns can be entered into more than one.

This year, the categories have been thoroughly reviewed and revised where necessary, in consultation with the IPM’s specialist Councils, including Experiential, Shopper and Partnership, and the wider membership.

In addition, there are three Special Awards – the coveted Brand of the Year, Agency of the Year and Grand Prix trophies.

The online awards entry platform has also been updated and streamlined, to make the entry process even easier than in previous years.

For anyone who needs inspiration, the full list of winners from the IPM Awards 2017 can be found on the IPM website, while Sense’s Grand Prix winning entry on behalf of The Economist can be found in the IPM Awards Entry Handbook (with commercially sensitive information redacted), which can be viewed online or downloaded.

The IPM Awards are the premier recognition platform for the UK promotional marketing industry and are also the only route for UK campaigns to qualify for entry to the IMC European Awards.

The IPM Awards 2018 entry deadline is 23.59 on February 28th 2018, with the winners announced at a Gala Dinner on June 8th, 2018.

The IPM Awards 2018 Call for Entries, including a list of all the categories, entry costs and Terms & Conditions of entry, can be downloaded from the IPM website here.

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UK agencies collected 15 awards in the IMC European Awards 2017, with two Gold, three Silver and 10 Bronze trophies being shared by seven British agencies.

Gold awards went to TracyLocke for its ‘Dolce by Ferrero Rocher’ campaign in the Event Marketing category, and to Toucan for its ‘Peperami Stunt Animal in the Angry Birds Movie’ campaign in the Sponsorship/Joint Effort/Tie-in category.

Three Silver awards were handed out. TracyLocke won for the ‘Dolce by Ferrero Rocher’ in Brand Building, ignis won for ‘Jameson #BeOriginal360’ in Branded Content and RPM won for ‘Only One Captain Morgan’ in the Innovative Idea or Concept category.

Ten Bronze trophies were awarded. TLC Marketing won two awards for its campaigns ‘Relish Rewards’ (B2B, Loyalty Marketing) and ‘Giant Chip Fork’ (B2B, Direct 1:1) each. Two went to ignis for ‘Jameson #BeOriginal360’ (Digital Communications, Innovative Idea or Concept). Haygarth also received two awards for its ‘Clarins Urban Oasis’ campaign (Event Marketing, Innovative Idea or Concept). Two agencies took a bronze each – TracyLocke for ‘Dolce by Ferrero Rocher’ and Brand & Deliver Marketing for ‘Join the Radeon Rebellion’.

John Sylvester, IPM Chairman, says: “The exceptional work awarded to U.K. agencies this year shows the breadth and creative scope of our talent here. At the IPM we will continue to support this important European award programme.” The IPM are Members of EACA and a key representative of the IMC Council.

Overall, 85 winners have been selected in this year’s IMC European Awards for Integrated Marketing Communications, representing 32 agencies from 7 countries. The country with the most awards in 2017 was Czech Republic with 21 trophies.

For a full list of British trophy winners click here.

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