IAS b2b first UK agency to win main prize at Business Marketing Assocation of America B2 Awards
IAS b2b has been named the Business Marketing Association of America Agency of the Year at the B2’s, the first time that an agency from the UK has won the prize in the event’s 38-year history.
Competing against international competitors such as Gyro and Weber Shandwick, the agency which has offices in both Cheshire and London, picked up 21 awards at the Grand Prix ceremony, including the Advertising Grand Prix for Kingspan.
Other categories that the agency won prizes in included Original Illustration, Direct Response & Offer Strategy and Multi-channel Lead Generation Programme for Talk Talk, alongside Business or Social Issue, Email & Lead Generation and Global Brand Strategy for Trelleborg.
The full list of award wins by the agency is listed below.
Rob Morrice, CEO of IAS b2b, described the achievement by the agency as the “best of my working life,” and admitted that while he had targeted winning the main award at the event one day, he felt the agency had done so ahead of schedule.
“I have long said that being the best doesn’t necessarily go with being the biggest and I reckon at this point IAS can make a fair claim to being the ‘best’ B2B agency around. Our intention is not to rest on our laurels but to go global by taking the IAS model and ‘franchising’ it through investment in agencies in other parts of the world,” Morrice added.
The National Industrial Advertising Association, now the Business Marketing Association began life in 1922 and received over 700 entires from around the world for this year’s B2 Awards.
With the exception of the Grand Prix and Agency of the Year awards, the full list of IAS b2b Award wins are below:
- Mobile Advertising Campaign - Siemens (Best of Category Winner)
- SEO (Natural Search), Under 10 Keywords – Kingspan Benchmark (Best of Category Winner, Advertising Category Winner)
- Total B2C & B2B Programme, Under $250K – Recyclebank (Best of Category Winner)
- Business or Social Issue – Trelleborg (Best of Category Winner)
- Global Brand Strategy - Trelleborg (Award of Excellence)
- Integrated Marketing Communications Strategy – Kingspan (Award of Excellence)
- Direct Response & Offer Strategy - Talk Talk (Award of Excellence)
- New Company/Division Launch - Kingspan (Award of Excellence)
- Social Media - IAS (Award of Excellence)
- Video – IAS (Award of Excellence)
- Web Site - IAS (Award of Excellence)
- Multi-Touch Programme - IAS (Award of Excellence)
- Original Illustration - TalkTalk (Award of Excellence)
- Business or Social Issue - Kingspan's Stirling Prize Sponsorship (Award of Excellence)
- Business or Social Issue - Veolia (Award of Excellence)
- Service PR Programme/Campaign – Recyclebank (Award of Excellence)
- Communications Campaign, Corporate Social Responsibility - Recyclebank (Award of Excellence)
- Corporate Community Relations Program – Recyclebank (Award of Excellence)
- Website, Under $250K – Veolia (Award of Excellence)
- Email & Lead Generation – Trelleborg (Award of Excellence)
- Multi-channel Lead Generation Programme – Talk Talk (Award of Excellence)
Morrice also admitted that he was in the process of considering some acquisition targets for the agency.