The Drum Search Awards: GSK’s Adrian Phipps on rewarding Dublin Airport
This year’s chair of The Drum Search Awards, Adrian Phipps, global SEO director at GSK chose his personal favourite nominee to give the Chair Award, which he decided would be received by Wolfgang Digital for its work with Dublin Airport.
The project, which also won in the SEO & PPC – Most Effective Use of Technology in a Search Campaign category, was given strong praise by Phipps for its successful execution.
Phipps explained his reasoning for recognizing the project, admitting that it looked like a site migration exercise at first, but that he was impressed by just how the job was carried out.
“They demonstrated how to do a site migration really well with excellent planning, excellent judgement, excellent preparation. They pushed the envelope a bit more by involving great UX and also tripled impression shares and triple conversation rates – but here’s the rub, they did it during a time when you would typically freeze your IT development. They did it during peak season, so hats off to them. It is proof that you can do it without having to wait to release a new version of your IT road map.
“They had the guts to do it, they did it and they pulled it off and it was very successful,” he added.
“I wanted to give it recognition due to how they did it. It demonstrates that good planning and preparation is key, and that good migration is worth its weight in gold.”
Phipps also offered his viewpoint on what trends he saw in the awards: “There were some general trends towards trying to come up with a unique way of looking for a local search function or local activation… that’s testament to Google My Business being improved and local search functions being improved.“
He then went on to offer some advice to those working in SEO during the current problems brought on by the coronavirus pandemic. “Stick with the hygiene, do the basics well,” he recommended. “Do not forget the basics.”
Hear his insights in full as well as his advice for search practitioners in the interview session above and check out the full list of winners from The Drum Search Awards this year on the official website.