The IQ Talent Awards are designed to be different. A dozen categories recognising the excellence of individuals who keep the lights on and sometimes have those lightbulb moments that transform the business. So it proved when the first-ever awards were handed out at a special party in Fabric on 1st May, sponsored by Callcredit Information Group and Neolane.
A packed audience discovered who the judging panel had decided were worthy of merit. Hard work and inspiration were celebrated, rewarding the efforts of the debutant winners from across client organisations, suppliers and agencies. Then those present got down to the serious work of dancing, keeping the promise of the IQ Talent Awards to provide half the awards and twice the party.
GRAND PRIX
Awarded in honour of Prof. Derek Holder, founder of the IDM
Supported by the IDM
Winner: Tess Tucker, head of digital marketing, JUST EAT
Overtaking Domino’s Pizza to become the UK’s number one food delivery website, JUST EAT has been a phenomenal success.Since joining from TopTable.co.uk, Tucker has brought together display, paid search, SEO, mobile and social media to achieve weekly order growth of 84 per cent in the last year, winning 55 per cent more page views than its nearest competitor. Described as “inspiring and visionary”, Tucker has been a driving force at the business.
CEO of the IDM, Mike Cornwell, said: “The top prize at any awards should stand out in multiple ways and the inaugural winner of the Grand Prix certainly achieves this in style. Highly creative, equally innovative, cleverly thought-through, data-driven and highly measurable in effectiveness. Most importantly, though, it's truly inspirational to anyone who is a digital marketing practitioner.”
CRM MANAGER
Sponsored by Neolane
W E inner: d Cracknell, customer marketing executive, ESPN
Shortlisted:
Liz Curry, Comic Relief
Matt Freeman, TMW
Oli Glanville, SMA Nutrition
Jack Tominey, BrightHouse
Adrian Williamson, Royal Mail Address Management Unit
The judges were looking for someone who has developed and enhanced the customer relationship management function in their business. They may be a great planner, or they may have insight into their customers’ needs.
Cracknell demonstrated both. Despite having no previous experience and being self taught on e-CRM systems, he has led ESPN’s acquisition and retention programmes. These have included bringing his own passion for rugby to bear on ESPN’s Aviva Premiership Rugby coverage, driving fan engagement and subscription revenue, for example. He has beaten key performance indicators by up to 200 per cent.
DATA PLANNER
Sponsored by MarketingFinder.co.uk
Winner: Claire Gardner, data strategy director, Cyance
Highly Commended: Tim Hamill, MarketReach
Shortlisted:
Amanda Arthur, Havas EHS
Adam French, Response One
Hayley Jones, Park Resorts
Lee Witherell, Fuel
This award was for somebody who showed real skills in sourcing, applying or innovating data and data services. The winner always seemed to know where to get that critical piece of information.
Gardner demonstrated that in a new “deep dive” campaign for Motorola Solutions which identified two large prospective key accounts. She has worked with the client since 2010, building from an initial trial to an average of five projects a month on an account worth £400,000 annually. The work involves global data cleansing, profiling and new data acquisition with refreshed data integrated back into Motorola’s systems.
DATA STEWARD
Sponsored by DQM Group
Winner: Rudi Leoni, head of information policy and governance, Telefónica UK
Highly Commended: Nicola Went, Royal Mail’s Address Management Unit
Shortlisted:
Fiona Adnett, The Guide Dogs for the Blind Association
Neil Matthews, Dell
Nick Parkinson, Radlea
The winner of this award needed to demonstrate dilligence and commitment combined with a sound commercial understanding. They follow best practice while still doing their day job.
Leoni has demonstrated this and more, moving the company up the maturity curve of data governance since joining last year. As secretariat to the Information Council, he has the responsibility for setting everybody’s understanding and defining where change is needed to support Telefónica’s shift towards becoming an information company. His role is both critical and also unsung - until now.
DIGITAL MARKETER
Sponsored by Teradata eCircle
Winner: Tess Tucker, head of digital marketing, JUST EAT
Highly Commended: Jared Ruddy, BT
Shortlisted:
Oliver Betts, TMW
Matt Camps, The IDM
Lance Spurgeon, Gamesys
Richard Weaver, Majestic
The judges were looking for somebody who showed innovative use of digital channels. They needed to deliver real benefits to the organisation through their application and understanding.
Overtaking Domino’s Pizza to become the UK’s number one food delivery website, JUST EAT has been a phenomenal success. Since joining from TopTable.co.uk, Tucker has brought together display, paid search, SEO, mobile and social media to achieve weekly order growth of 84 per cent in the last year, winning 55 per cent more page views than its nearest competitor. Described as “inspiring and visionary”, Tucker has been a driving force at the business.
MARKETING TECHNOLOGIST
Sponsored by SDL
Winner: Melanie Boland, data solutions executive, Reed Business Information
Shortlisted:
Jon Jackson, BeSeen Marketing
Mark Jameson, BlueSheep
Jared Ruddy, BT
This award is for the appropriate, innovative and positive introduction of technology to the marketing function. It went to somebody who worked out how to automate the marketing process.
By deploying a marketing automation tool, Boland has saved resources and time while increasing reach and upsell. She developed a data solution for the subscriber nurture programme on XpertHR which has improved the customer experience and increased product usage. Ten automation programmes were created which replaced limited segmentation and message tailoring in one-off emails with staged, personalised communications.
REAL MAIL MARKETER
Sponsored by Royal Mail
Winner: Liz Curry, CRM Manager, Comic Relief
Shortlisted:
Gavin Hawthorn, Pets at Home
Kyle Rance, MarketReach
This award was all about the use of real mail - direct mail or a targeted door drop. The winner got truly hands-on with a tangible communication.
Through the power of testing, Curry was able to get Comic Relief’s market planning function to re-evaluate a desire to become completely digital and introduce a real mail element. Analysis identified a “neighbourhood effect” in the database which was tested using door drops. These were shown to drive online sign up and have led the charity to look at using mailed communications for other targets, such as the school network.
SOCIAL MARKETER
Sponsored by Experian Marketing Services
Winner: Lynn Grimes, director of marketing and UK recruitment, and Nicola Miller, head of PR and communications, London South Bank University
Shortlisted:
Cassie Anderson, miiCard
Ken Kennedy, Royal Mail Address Management Unit
Sasha Kerman, Red Carnation Hotels
The judges were looking for the use of a broad range of social media. They wanted somebody who really took their organisation social.
Over the last year, Grimes and Miller have revolutionised the way social media is used at the university, turning it into a customer service and listening tool. With pressure on admissions, they have adopted social media as a new way to reach prospective students as well as running campaigns to support current students. The new media strategy showed positive results in a difficult year for the sector.
DATA PROFESSIONAL
Sponsored by Consumersketch
Winner: Jane Huntington, data manager, The Guide Dogs for the Blind Association
Highly Commended: James Morgan, Telefónica UK
Shortlisted:
Mark Chipperfield, BBC TV Licensing
Hayley Jones, Park Resorts
Chris Skinner, Intelligent Data Services
The judges were looking for an evangelist and true professional, somebody who has turned the data function in their business into a really honed operation.
Huntington has worked hard to ensure that data drives the association’s marketing activity by building an effective donor database. She is passionate about the potential of data to impact positively on the blind and partially-sighted, starting from ensuring that data is accurate and supported by appropriate technology and automation. Insight has been harnessed to ensure that the charity’s donors remain the most loyal in the sector.
DATA SCIENTIST
Sponsored by RAPP
Winner: Tim Drye, managing director, Data Talk
Highly Commended: Zoe Palethorpe, Callcredit Data Solutions
Shortlisted:
Daniel Cross, Lateral Group
Dan Harrington, Havas Media
Roger Luxton, SDL Campaign Management and Analytics
Darren Robertson, Action for Children
Running a specialist data business for 14 years, Drye has worked on a range of client projects, including Comic Relief, where he identified the “neighbourhood effect” in its database, leading to the introduction of targeted door drops, and Registry Trust, developing an understanding of the debt cycle within population segments. He has been helping to create consumer segments for the music industry and the Censation geo-demographic system. Drye also provides the technical support for the British Population Survey. He also finds time to sit on both the IDM and DMA Data Councils and Royal Mail PAF Advisory Board.
B2B LEADER
SponsoredLead Forensics by
Winner: Keith Jones, sales and marketing director, Royal Mail Data Services
Highly Commended: Mike Lordan, DMA
Shortlisted:
Michael Bull, Symantec
Susan Macfarlane, Intelligent Data Services
Barry Mattacott, Wick Hill
Luci Penn, The Data Agency
A highly-experienced data professional, Jones joined RMDS in 2009 with a mission to reshape the division and support significant profitable growth. This has involved a top-to-toe redesign of its core product range and stronger branding. A new lead generation product is being launched and the business has won a multi-million pound contract which demonstrated to senior management the true potential of the company’s data asset.
“DATA IS THE NEW CREATIVE”
Sponsored by DataIQ
Winner: Oliver Betts, data planner, TMW
Highly Commended: Jason McClelland, RAPP
Shortlisted:
Louise Hughes, Boots
Keith Jones, Royal Mail Data Services
Gary Malcolm, Arena Media
Paul Weston, The Customer Framework
The judges were looking for somebody who made a radical difference to their organisation through their creative thinking about data. Betts demonstrated this by turning around a major misrepresentation of web analytics data. By refusing to settle for simple answers, he discovered a deeper story about why people browse websites in certain ways, leading to a data-driven strategy that engages customers in a more personal way.
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