The shortlist for the Marketing Society Awards for Excellence 2009 reads like a Who's Who of famous companies and brands, but only the very best will walk away with one of the coveted trophies on the night.
The marketing community's annual big night out, which takes place on 8 June at the London Hilton on Park Lane, has an extra dimension this year as it falls amid The Marketing Society's Golden Jubilee celebrations.
The original sackfuls of entries have been whittled down to a shortlist by an elite panel of independent marketing experts, who came together to form this year's judging panel under the chairmanship of Dianne Thompson, chief executive of Camelot and a fellow of The Marketing Society.
The judges were looking for marketing excellence and leading-edge thinking that had a demonstrable impact on the brands in question; they were not disappointed by the entries that flooded in.
There are three shortlisted entries for Cadbury, Hovis and Kimberly-Clark and two apiece for British Gas, the British Heart Foundation, BT, Business Stream, the Home Office, McDonald's, More Than, O2, RSA and Unilever.
Awards up for grabs include new brand, brand revitalisation and marketing achievement. This year's awards also feature a new category dedicated to rewarding marketing teamwork, where multi-disciplinary teams have worked together toward a common goal.
The top prize of the evening will be the coveted Grand Prix, which was last year won by AkzoNobel (formerly ICI Paints) for the transformation of its marketing function.
The shortlist for the prestigious Marketer of the Year award - last year won by Jill McDonald, senior vice-president and chief marketing officer, UK and Northern Europe, for McDonald's - will be announced in Marketing in early May, along with voting details.
The Marketing Society Awards for Excellence is one of the must-attend evenings of the marketing calendar. Judging by the standard of the shortlisted entries, it will certainly be a night to remember.
Awards 2009
Venue London Hilton, Park Lane, London
Date Monday 8 June
Table bookings Tables are still available for the Marketing Society Golden Jubilee Awards ceremony.
To make a booking, contact Adele Durham on 020 8267 4344 or email adele.durham@haymarket.com. A booking form can be downloaded from www.marketingsocietyawards.com.
Shortlist
- Act on CO2 - Save money, save energy
- AkzoNobel - Ecosure and Step towards greener
- Arla Foods - Lactofree - From niche to normal
- Barclays - Life's Rewards
- BBC - BBC iPlayer: Off to a flying start
- Best Western - Customer relationship marketing
- Birds Eye - Putting the good mood back into Birds Eye
- British Gas - Generation Green
- British Gas Services - Engineers' Good News
- British Heart Foundation - Learning through play
- British Heart Foundation - Watch your own heart attack
- BT - Bridging the divide
- BT Business - Do what you do best
- Business Stream - Getting from good to great
- Business Stream - Making water work for you
- Cadbury - Dairy Milk: A new communications model
- Cadbury - Creme Egg campaign 2008
- Cadbury - For the love of Wispa
- Capital One Bank - Capital One and Scope
- Channel 4 - The Big Food Fight
- Cobra Beer - From niche to mainstream
- Coors - Immortalising Grolsch
- Corsodyl - More than just a pretty smile
- Dylon - Dylon brand relaunch
- Ebookers - Brand revitalisation
- Fever-Tree - Launching Fever-Tree
- Freesat - Brilliant for Everyone
- Grey London - The philosophy that transformed Grey London
- Home Office - How research broke the brick wall of denial
- Home Office - How research helped to solve knife crime
- Hovis - As good today as it has ever been (3 entries)
- Innocent Drinks - This Water
- Institute of Chartered Accountants - Modernising the ICAEW
- Johnson & Johnson -The Nicorette Inhalator - A hidden gem
- Kimberly-Clark - Huggies Pull-Ups Night-Time brand extension
- Kimberly-Clark - Revitalising the Kleenex brand
- Kimberly-Clark - Andrex's limited-edition Comic Relief Puppy
- LOCOG - Sponsorship strategy for London 2012
- Littlewoods Direct - Out-of-this-world results in a retail downturn
- Learning and Skills Council - Our future. It's in our hands
- Company - Name of entry
- Mars - Snickers: Sell some nuts!
- Marshalls - Marshalls for sustainable landscapes
- McDonald's - McJob
- McDonald's - That's what makes McDonald's
- More Th>n - More 4Me
- More Th>n - Personal customer manager
- Morrisons - Fresh Growth for Morrisons
- Muller -How we licked the lid of life
- NCP - Full On! NCP internal marketing
- Nissan - How Nissan launched Qashqai
- O2 - The O2 - Extending the brand
- O2 - The O2 marketing academy
- Orange - Geography textbooks and piste maps
- Oxfam and Marks & Spencer - The M&S and Oxfam clothing exchange
- Pedigree - How Pedigree helped homeless dogs
- Recycle for London - Getting Londoners to recycle more
- RSA - Internal marketing
- RSA - International brand development
- Royal Mail - Partner for growth
- Sainsbury's - Trying something new in a downturn
- SCA - Velvet, WWF and 45,000 pandas
- Shell - Recruiting more for less
- Sky - Accelerating advocacy
- Sony - Rolly
- Stanley - Reinvigorating the Stanley brand
- Texaco - Growing loyalty in a disloyal category
- The Co-operative Food - Being good with food again
- The Famous Grouse - Also available in black
- The Times - Marketing teamwork
- Thomson Reuters - Introducing intelligent information
- Transport for London - Using our brains to save cyclists' lives
- Unilever - Marmite: Delivering sustained topline growth
- Unilever - PG Tips: A tale of two continents
- UPS - The UPS Widget
- Walkers - Do us a flavour
- Visa Europe - Life flows better with Visa
- Whitbread - A clean sheet for Premier Inn
- Yamaha Music UK - Yamaha pioneers the Virtual EXPO experience
- Zurich - Zurich Help-Point