The Drum’s Dadi Awards nominees revealed – Who will be taking home the trophies as the event celebrates its 10th birthday?
A lot has changed in the world of digital in the past 10 years, but one thing has remained a constant – The Drum Awards for the Digital Industries (Dadis), which have been rewarding digital excellence for the past decade.
The shortlist for the 2016 Dadis awards has been revealed / The Drum
This year’s judging was the toughest yet, with hundreds of entries whittled down by our esteemed panel of 40 industry luminaries, and now we can reveal who has made it on to the shortlist.
Leading the nominations for 2016 is Mediacom group which has been shortlisted in nine categories and WPP-owned Essence which has been nominated across eight categories, while Accenture, Greenlight Digital and Starcom Mediavest group which have all bagged themselves seven nominations each.
Some new categories have been introduced this year, meaning that as well as rewarding agencies and creative work via the more traditional Digital Agency of the Year and Digital Media Strategy of the Year gongs, prizes will also be awarded for the use of virtual reality and paid media.
Up for an award in the Best Use of VR category is Google’s Hunger Games creative for Lionsgate, Virgin Media’s ‘House Party’ experience by Manning Gottlieb OMD and Somo’s ‘Hive Connected Home’ work. Saavy Marketing, Pulse Group, Redweb, Catch, DigitasLBi Nordics, BEcause Experiential Marketing and Brandwidth have also made it on to the shortlist for Best Use of VR.
A full list of this year’s nominations can be found on the Dadis website.
The judging panel was headed up by Podge founder Phil Jones, who has been chairman of the awards judges since they kicked off 10 years ago. Judges from a variety of agencies and brands sat alongside him on the panel, including: Carolyn McKeeve, global head of loyalty at Shell; Universal Music UK’s director of digital Paul Smernicki; Leigh Thomas, chief Executive officer at Dare and DigitasLBI’s chief technology officer, Ross.
Commenting on the awards, Jones said: “Wow, 10 years of the Dadis has flown by. While eight judges were enough to cope 10 years ago we had 40 influential judges this year and they did an incredible job.
“Watching the judges stand up and talk about their favourite work was a real joy and they all went away feeling as though the winning entries were really worthy of the 10th anniversary ceremony in October. I am very much looking forward to seeing the smiles on the faces of those being invited up on stage to pick up their awards and to presenting my own chairman’s award.”
The results will be revealed at a 10th birthday anniversary celebration at the Park Plaza Westminster in October.
The Dadi Awards are sponsored by Shazam and TINT. To find out more information visit the website.