Member Article

Newcastle firms short-listed for marketing excellence award

The Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) announces the shortlist for their Marketing Excellence Awards 2012, which includes marketing campaigns from two leading Newcastle companies. These prestigious awards recognise the importance of the role of marketing in both the business and increasingly in the public sectors.

Tyne and Wear Metro is short-listed in the transport category for its work on the real time travel information project.

And Newcastle Building Society has been short-listed for the third time in the Financial Services – Banking and Investment category for their “Great British Summer Campaign.” They won this category in last year’s awards.

The Great British Summer Campaign. “NBS has a strong heritage within the region after spending 150 years helping customers save and buy their homes” said Christine Heslop, Head of Marketing Communications. “We wanted to Ignite a sense of pride and belonging within our customer base and reinforce the values of Newcastle Building Society.”

There were two key elements to the campaign aimed at driving footfall into branches and increase engagement and quality contact opportunities.

A Product launch – Sir Bobby Robson Foundation Account. A charity-linked savings account which pledges to give a cash donation for every pound invested by customers. The account has proved so popular, the Society has so far donated more than £100,000 to the Foundation, showing just how close this cause is to people’s hearts

And the Cornerstone of the Community initiative - supporting local communities and good causes via a range of events and activities, including a Financial education programme for local schools and Cornerstone of the Community awards – recognising the good deeds of local people.

They also ‘linked up’ with another local Newcastle brand ’ Victory Tea’ to help support the campaign - ‘Join us for a Cuppa and a chat’. And there was a prize draw in each branch to win a years free tea.

“We’re absolutely delighted to be nominated once again and to be amongst such a prestigious group of brands.” Concluded Christine.

Tyne and Wear Metro keeps you updated – real time travel information project. This campaign adopted an innovative approach to meet the needs of today’s customer, shifting from static, less flexible communication to providing real time travel updates and information to passengers and staff via an integrated system which works across the website, email and SMS alerts, social media channels such as Facebook and Twitter and internal emails to staff. Sharon Kelly, Director of Customer Services and Operations at DB Regio Tyne and Wear, said: “We are delighted to have been short-listed for such a prestigious national Marketing Excellence Award – this recognition is testament to the hard work of our dedicated marketing team.

“The real time travel information project has transformed the way in which Metro communicates with its customers, in line with a changing world where technology has had a huge impact on customer behaviour. We are extremely proud of our integrated system – in providing real time travel updates to passengers through channels most convenient to them, it has been successful in increasing customer satisfaction, enabling passengers to plan ahead more easily and helping staff to manage their workloads more effectively.”

The Awards are now in their fourth successful year, and are again sponsored by founding sponsor, The Marketing Trust. Over 140 entries have been short-listed in the 22 industry categories, while 18 finalists are also set to battle it out in the two individual categories, Marketer of the year – and Marketing Team of the year, celebrating superb individual and team contributions. The finalists were selected by industry professionals and all the short- listed campaigns announced today were selected from an outstanding number and range of organisations.

Sam Meredith, chairman of the North East Branch of the Chartered Institute of Marketing said; “The judges were impressed with the exceptional creativity, resourcefulness and sophistication of the work submitted, particularly in this tough economic climate. The Institute’s awards are the benchmark for excellence and this year’s finalists have again raised the bar. It is fantastic to be able to reward their brilliant performance and I’d like to congratulate all the short-listed companies and obviously hope that both Newcastle Building Society and Tyne and Wear Metro go on to win their respective categories.”

Sunderland Teaching Primary Care Trust were nominated in the Public Sector category. The winners will be announced at a glittering Awards dinner and ceremony at the Grosvenor House Hotel in Park Lane, London on Wednesday, 6th March 2013. To see the full list of awards and finalists, please visit www.cimawards.co.uk

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Chartered Institute of Marketing .