Marketing Excellence Awards

The first thing to say about this year’s nominations is not only is the quantity of entries up from last year, the quality of the work has increased. There was only one category where we weren’t able to make an award, let’s be clear, it’s not just the best entry that wins, all the winners have to demonstrate excellence. The quality is improving in both the way the papers are being written and the writing.

The quality of the actual writing – certainly in the categories I judged – was much better. People are learning how to write papers, which is good because it’s a key skill to be able to communicate what you have done in the written word. There are still areas to be improved on but I think there was a significant move forward. Instead of it being the most junior person in a department who is writing the paper because they have to, it’s actually getting real care and attention and you can tell that. What’s also heartening is that many of the papers were written by clients, who have clear insights and a passion for their projects.

I think the nominations are very strong, and this year we’ve got a wide range of businesses. We’ve got some new agencies coming in for the first time and brand development was a category that was heavily populated.

In terms of the judging, there was more emphasis in the way it was set up.

The judging process was more rigorous than last year. Without doing any discourteousness to last year, we made sure there was absolutely no conflict of interest this year. We were much more strict in the alignment of judges to the panels. All the papers were circulated earlier, allowing more time to read them than last year. The fact that we had a dedicated person to process the systems and arrangements, also helped the awards’ efficiency.

The first year was a big success and this year it’s been built on. It’s incremental. There were twenty more entries on the 160 from 2005, there’s a slightly tighter judging process, there’s slightly more aligned panels. We’re all pleased the awards are gaining momentum.

It’s interesting, as people say the second year is the hardest. If we’ve managed to build on the success of the first year, then I feel good about what that means. It means in the future this is actually to become a really big, established part of the marketing calendar, and that’s the reason we’re doing it. This is the ideal opportunity to showcase the high quality of work from Scottish agencies and Scottish clients. Good luck to all those clients and agencies nominated.

01 BRAND DEVELOPMENT

A) Brand Development

WWAV Rapp Collins – SSPC: Living For The Day

Chartered Brands – Adams Apple: The Growth of Pomegreat

Scottish And Newcastle – Fosters Super Chilled

Maxxium UK – Be Cointreauversial Campaign

Target Direct – Abbey for Intermediaries “Service Campaign”

B) Internal Marketing

Citigate Smarts – Anderson Strathearn – “From This Day Forward”

The Leith Agency – Standard Life “Hi My Name Is Nick”

Maxxium UK – Maxxium Brand of The Month Programme

C) Marketing Capabilities

Scottish and Newcastle – Marketing Excellence Programme

D) Customer Insight

The Leith Agency – Drug Dealers Don’t Care But We Do (Scottish Executive)

Scottish and Newcastle – Fosters Lager “Insight Into Action”

Scottish Enterprise – Business Start Up Award for 18 – 30s

Royal Bank of Scotland – Affluent

WWAV Rapp Collins Scotland – Climbing the Ladder (Visit Scotland)

E) Cause Related Marketing

The Leith Agency – Drug Dealers Don’t Care But We Do (Scottish Executive)

1576 – Historic Scotland

02 COMMUNICATIONS EXCELLENCE

A) Design Excellence

The Macallan

Elmwood - Moo's Story

Scottish and Newcastle – Strongbow Brand Redesign

The Edrington Group - The Famous Grouse Packaging Redesign

Scottish and Newcastle - Fosters Waterfall Packaging

B) Advertising Excellence

S1 - Happiness1

The Leith Agency - Drug Dealers Don't Care But We Do

Quality Meat Scotland C/O The Union Advertising Agency - The Journey South - Scotch Beef in England

Scottish Enterprise - Business Start Up Awards For 18 - 30's

Frame - Jings, Crivens, Help Ma Boab

The Edrington Group - How The Famous Grouse Took Off

C) Direct and Promotional Excellence

Scottish and Newcastle International - Brands That Travel The World

The Royal Bank of Scotland - Affluent

The Leith Agency - Bananas

WWAV Rapp Collins Edinburgh - Caledonian MacBrayne

Frame - Sub of the Day

Target Direct Scotland - "Oh Yes We Do" Flexible Campaign

D) Online Excellence

BD Network Scotland – Coca Cola Centre Stage

BD Network Scotland – Visit Scotland Online Games

Media Co – Learning Success

Miller Homes

E) PR and Media Excellence

Burt Greener Communications – Radiance, Glasgow Festival of Light

Elaine Howie PR Ltd – EH PR Ltd and Lloyds TSB Sponsorship of Scottish Cricket

Matthews Marketing – Big in Falkirk

Chartered Brands– The Pomphenom

F) Sponsorship and Event Excellence

Scottish and Newcastle – John Smith’s Grand National

The Royal Bank of Scotland – F1 Campaign

Material – Tennent’s Lager “T in the Park”

Lloyds TSB Scotland – It’s A Big Hit

VisitScotland – The Scottish Village

03 BUSINESS EXCELLENCE

A) New Enterprise

Project Scotland c/o The Union Advertising Agency - Launch of Project Scotland

Citigate Smarts Ambulance Chasing (Why It's Not Really Very Clever)

B) Marketing Achievement - Large Enterprise

1576 - The Renaissance of Visit Scotland - The Strategic Path to Successful Change

Miller Homes - Miller Homes

Citigate Smarts - Tactically Applying the Art of Strategy

The Macallan

C) Marketing Achievement - Small and Medium Enterprise

Scottish Waste Awareness Group

Scottish Information Commissioner c/o The Union Advertising Agency

D) Business-to-Business

The Leith Agency - Giving Ideas the Best Treatment

Clydesdale Bank - Mint Mailer

Biggart Ballie c/o The Union Advertising Agency - Biggart Ballie

E) Innovation Excellence

S1 – If you wanna be the best

Highland Reserve Forces and Cadets Association – Summer Initiative 2005

Mediacom Scotland – Cracking Leverhulmes Conundrum

The Macallan

Miller Homes

Chartered Brands – A Brave New World

04 CHAMPIONS OF MARKETING EXCELLENCE

A) Brand Company of the Year

Chartered Brands

Quality Meat Scotland

Maxxium UK

Edrington Group Plc

S&N UK

B) Marketing Services Company of the Year

Material

Media Co

MediaCom

The Leith Agency

1576

Newhaven

Frame

C) Student Marketer of the Year

Liala Hirschfeld

Sarah Todd

Vikki McCall

Ross Stehphenson

D) Young Marketer of the Year

Sera Holland – Material

Gary Wise – Feathers

Phil McAteer – Fosters ( S & N)

E) Marketer of the Year

Chris Dempsey – Scottish Executive

Malcolm Roughead - VisitScotland

Paul Geddes - RBS

Tim Seager – S & N

Lisa Stephenson – Lloyds TSB

Gordon Craig – Dundee University

Marketer of the Year

Lisa Stephenson, executive director,

Lloyds TSB Scotland

Lisa Stephenson is an executive director of Lloyds TSB Scotland. She is responsible for the Bank’s product and customer service developments, marketing, communications and brand strategy for the Retail and Wholesale banking businesses.

In addition, she also oversees the mass affluent customer relationship management teams – Private Client Banking and is a Network Director for the Private banking business.

Having joined the LTSB Group in 1987 as a management trainee, Stephenson has developed a broad banking background, and a remit which covers Scotland, the North of England, Yorkshire and Lancashire.

She has worked in a variety of relationship management and head office roles in Retail, Business and Commercial Banking throughout the UK.

For a number of years she has been involved in developing the bank’s profile for “Women in Business” and is a frequent speaker in this area.

She is a Fellow of the Marketing Society, chair of the Appeal Board of Sightsavers International in Scotland, a Board member of Young Enterprise Scotland and the Edinburgh Fringe, a Fellow of the Institute of Bankers in Scotland and a Chartered Banker.

Stephenson, who is based in Edinburgh, has been instrumental in Lloyd TSB Scotland’s marketing initiatives, including the bank’s innovative sponsorship of Cricket Scotland.

The high profile multi-media campaign "It’s Going to be a Big Hit" - mounted by Lloyds TSB Scotland - won the award for the best cricket promotional campaign at the Euroupean ICC Development Programme Awards in 2004. The campaign is credited with having significantly raised the profile of the game north of the Border.

Tim Seager, marketing director,

Scottish & Newcastle UK

Last year’s winner of the Marketer of the Year award at the Scottish Marketing Excellence Awards, Tim Seager joined S&N UK as marketing director in January 2004 – taking on brands such as Foster’s, John Smith’s, Kronenbourg 1664 and Strongbow amongst others.

He is an accomplished marketing director with over 15 years international experience in consumer goods. Starting his career with Procter & Gamble in 1988 as an assistant brand manager, he held various European marketing roles, latterly as marketing director of P&G’s French operation where he orchestrated the growth of the Pampers brand across Europe.

More recently, he has helped transform S&N into a truly consumer and brand led business that believes in marketing-driven success. He has brought rigour to the planning process; portfolio and segmentation understanding; and team development - including a new training programme for all on strategy, brand equity and advertising development. Building on this – innovation has been given a new emphasis within the business, with major steps forward including Foster’s Super Chilled, Kronenbourg Blanc and Strongbow Sirrus.

In 2005, Seager was awarded the prestigious “Marketer of the Year” title by the Marketing Society in Scotland, adding to the tally of five further awards and commendations for the year. In February 2006, S&N published its annual results, further demonstrating that the transformation of the UK business continued apace. Increases in A&P investment and an aggressive NPD programme have driven profitability (10 percent), top line sales growth (6.2 percent), market share (1.1ppt) and volume (2.8 percent) – all achieved in a market that had shrunk by over two percent, bringing misery to many competitors.

Malcolm Roughead, marketing director, VisitScotland

Malcolm Roughead has been marketing director at Scotland’s national tourism agency VisitScotland since May 2001. He oversees the International marketing, UK and Ireland marketing, business tourism and research departments and gives strategic marketing direction to the organisation.

Under Roughead’s guidance, VisitScotland’s marketing efforts have been refocused to build a strong brand for Scotland which aims to distinguish the country from its competitors and position it in the minds of consumers as a must-visit, must-return destination.

A graduate in modern languages from the University of Glasgow, Roughead joined VisitScotland from Diageo, coming from Guinness World Records as global sales and marketing director.

He previously held a number of senior marketing positions over a 17-year period with Guinness in Africa, Europe, the Middle East and North America with overseas spells in South Africa and Germany.

Roughead started out in marketing at Nestle, followed by a spell at Beechams.

Recently, VisitScotland has seen its return on investment radically improve last year, as "reduced costs and an improved focus" helped contribute a £65m boost to the Scottish economy.

During 2004, the tourism agency produced a return of £31 for every £1 invested. This compares to an ROI of £8 in 2002.

The ROI figures, which are published on a bi-annual basis, are attributed to additional tourism created by the agency's promotional activities. The numbers were equally improved for the agency's 2004 pan-European campaign.

Further statistics showed that tourists arriving in Scotland from overseas between January and June 2005 increased to a record 910,000 from the 580,000 in the same period in 2004.

In March 2004 Roughead was awarded Scottish Marketer of the Year at the Scottish Marketing Awards and in the January Honours List was awarded an OBE for services to Tourism.

Paul Geddes, managing director, retail products and marketing, RBS

Paul Geddes is managing director, retail products and marketing, reporting to Gordon Pell, chief executive of Retail Markets.

Geddes joined the Royal Bank of Scotland in 2004. Prior to that, he was on the board of Argos, as marketing director.

Geddes studied politics, philosophy and economics at St Peter's College, Oxford where he was also a music scholar, graduating in 1990.

He started work at Proctor & Gamble, working in the UK and Europe on brands from Pampers to Max Factor. He then joined Kingfisher plc as head of marketing for Superdrug, before moving to become marketing director of electrical superstore chain, Comet.

In 2001 he joined the board of Argos as marketing director, including responsibility for Argos.co.uk. During this time Argos doubled profit, added 50 percent to sales and won awards for marketing, eCommerce and won Retailer of the Year in 2003.

His brief, on arrival at the bank in April 2004, was to develop strategy and marketing for the RBS and NatWest banks. A ‘popular marketing figure’, Geddes is seen by those within the industry as a man at the top of his game. In a sector labelled notoriously unsexy for marketers, it takes some doing to stand out from the crowd, as Geddes has. In his two years at RBS he has spearheaded the financial service group's expansion programme, which involves the successful creation and acquisition of brands.

Chris Dempsey, chief marketing manager, Scottish Executive

Developing the first major communications campaigns in the UK on Domestic Abuse, Racism and Devolution, re-branding both the NHS in Scotland and the Executive’s campaigns, developing alternative communications routes and putting in place a new public sector purchasing partnership were among the key highlights of the last ten years spent by Chris Dempsey, the Scottish Executive’s chief marketing manager.

Dempsey joined the Executive from school in 1968 and in 1982 moved to the media and communications group. He worked for several years on the Overseas Visitors programme before joining the Executive press office. He worked as press officer for several ministers before moving to the Marketing Unit in 1994.

Dempsey has worked in the Marketing Unit at the Scottish Executive for 12 years now. During that time he has been involved in major changes and helped produce award winning work. Campaigns of note have included Domestic Abuse, Racism, Alcohol and Drug Abuse and Fire and Road Safety.

During Dempsey’s time in the Marketing Unit the Executive has won numerous awards, including IPA effectiveness awards for Domestic Abuse and Children’s Hearings and most recently, at The Drum’s Scottish Advertising Awards where his team won Client of the Year and Executive campaigns won several creative awards. Furthermore, a number of campaigns have been short-listed for the Roses Advertising Awards this year too.

In the last few years the Executive’s marketing budgets have been capped and this has required a new approach to marketing. This led to greater integration among the media buying, online, PR and creative agencies employed by the Executive and major changes in ways of working. As a result greater return on investment has been obtained and new and innovative processes developed.

The Executive continues to strive to communicate effectively on such subjects as racism, alcohol abuse, diet, physical activity and drug abuse. Dempsey remains focused on finding effective ways of delivering key messages that provide real benefits for the people of Scotland.

Gordon Craig, director of admissions & student recruitment, Dundee University

The University of Dundee was one of the first higher education institutions in the UK to take its recruitment push to television.

The move - overseen by the university’s director of admissions and student recruitment, Gordon Craig - succeeded in harnessing the media to help reverse years of decline at Dundee Uni, with applications rocketing from 6,190 five years ago to 11,302 students applying for courses last year: a rise that is almost double the average for Scottish universities.

Dundee's campaign consists of quirky adverts and marketing targeted at students rather than careers advisers, promising them "serious fun" on everything from beer mats and bus shelters to youth television channels MTV and E4.

Dundee University's sustained five-year advertising campaign was awarded a silver award at the IPA’s annual Effectiveness Awards last year. It was praised for a carefully plotted initiative, integrating all channels of communication, which was judged to have helped to turn around the University's fortunes.

Craig graduated from Strathclyde University with a joint honours in Commerce and Public Administration in 1973 and it was there that he first studied marketing. Following five years in teaching, he went on to lecture in marketing, advertising and public administration at Bell College in Hamilton for 12 years.

His break came in 1991 when he was appointed the first ever marketing manager at a Scottish local authority - East Kilbride District Council, where he went on to become head of the marketing and policy units.

Following local government reorganisation in 1995 he became marketing manager at the Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen and then headed up the External Affairs Department there.

In 1997 Craig went to Dundee University to head up a newly created marketing team which has more than doubled over the last nine years and seen unprecedented success both in the home, European and international markets.

No other Scottish university has matched Dundee's applications rise over the period.