EIBTM’s annual Meetings and Incentive Industry Awards were presented – Wednesday 2 December. The Awards, an integral element of EIBTM and now in their 9th year, encourage creativity and reward excellence in the meetings and incentive industry. They offer recognition for the many talented event creators and marketers for their highly imaginative skills and professional execution, ideas and services.
The judging panel, chaired by Jeremy Garbett, formerly MD of JMW and now founder of a new agency Deeper Blue, were looking for truly outstanding events and campaigns that were highly imaginative in concept and execution. Creativity, innovation, impact, production, expertise, interactivity, sustainability and evaluation were all key factors in the judges’ final decisions.
Winners and runners up
1st Category: Best Special Event
Winner: Hagen Invent GmbH & Co. KG for Life is running! – HDI-Gerling Leben
This special event was part of a change management project for HDI-Gerling, a German insurance company following the merger with HDI Lebensversicherung to form one of the largest insurance companies. The analogy of a marathon race was transposed into a strategic motivational project: to train the employees and get them fit to run – in the figurative sense to reach corporate goals – as well as to take part the Cologne Marathon which the company sponsored.
‘Life is Running’ established itself as the main internal employee programme. 263 employees participated in the marathon; 600 runners and non runners involved themselves in leisure activities and a total of 2,800 employees watched the marathon from the fan grandstand in the Centre of Cologne.
The company also donated €100,000 to broadcaster’s RTL Donation Marathon.
Highly commended: Insglück Gesellschaft Für Markeninszenierung mbH for International Opening Ceremony CeBIT 2009
2nd Category: Best Conference with more than 250 attendees
Winner: Face to Face GmbH with Cast Off! Takeda Pharma
The key objective of this conference was to help communicate changes in the Pharmaceutical company Takeda by creating a collective experience for 500 delegates.
Key highlights of the day included welcoming delegates into a harbour; nautical charts were used to manoeuvre delegates into the future and implement strategies; logbooks and modern sailing equipment were used to highlight key performance indicators and explain future targets; teams assembled boats which were then donated to kindergartens; new company guidelines were presented through role play and Tim Kroger, German America’s Cup sailor provided delegates with a motivational keynote presentation.
The result was an original, well executed company event that successfully communicated core values and messages to the company.
Highly commended: Torino Convention Bureau for MPI’s European Meetings and Events Conference, Torino 2009
3rd Category: Best Conference with less than 250 attendees
Winner: Face to Face GmbH for We Write History (Bayer Health Care)
In October 2008 Bayer Health Care launched Xarelto, a new blood coagulation inhibitor on the European market and one of the company’s most important recent launches. The task was to train and build a new team over one year into a tight and motivated business unit.
The company organised five conferences around the theme of ‘We Write History’ with a kick off conference in Zugspitze, teambuilding at the Spitzingsee, a competence workshop in Königswinter, training in Warnemünde before the final launch, a five day conference in Valencia.
In Valencia delegates were personally collected by ‘Fink’ the reporter and then whisked to a tapas bar to interview management. Other highlights included a visit to a monastery, a white party in the Americas Cup harbour and a press ball all culminating in the publication of Xarelton News’ – the work of all those involved who had taken on the role of journalists to ‘Write History’.
Highly commended: The Companies GmbH for Funds Go 3D – Real I.S Annual Customer Meeting
4th Category: Best Incentive Programme
Winner: Grupo Pacifico for a cinematic event for Chiesi España
Making a movie for an incentive trip for pharmaceutical company Chieisi España was the task set for Grupo Pacifico.
All those involved in the incentive, together with actors, were sent a script outlining their role in the movie during their time in Jordan. Nobody knew the movie plot. The scheduled cultural and tourist activities laid on were interspersed with the shooting of the film which involved a plane highjacking, Roman spies, thieves, hired assassins and heroes in the spirit of James Bond and Indiana Jones.
The incentive was completed when the group flew back on a private charter flight to Madrid and the film was premiered in one of the city’s leading cinemas.
Highly commended: EVT Marketing Group for ‘Hot Sales, Cools Rewards’
5th Category: Best Destination Marketing Campaign
Winner: Sarawak Convention Bureau for ‘Awaken the Warrior Within’
The campaign’s objective was deceptively straightforward – to generate new international bid opportunities for Sarawak in Borneo. The components of the campaign included a series of three full page advertisements placed in international trade publications and a five minute sequel to the Award winning ‘Recharge in a New World – Sarawak, Borneo’ destination video used in destination and sales presentations.
The campaign generated during the period July 2008 to end August 2009 148 new bid opportunities from international organisations. Of these 93 were successfully converted and 24 are still under development.
The Bureau has achieved an overall bid success rate of 68.5% with an overwhelming majority of wins being regional or international conventions
Highly commended: Tourism Australia
6th Category: Sustainable Initiative of the Year
Winner: World Events for World Events Company Conference 2009
World Events is a full service event management company with 120 staff in its global offices. This winning entry’s objective was to source an environmentally, eco-friendly and socially responsible venue to accommodate 120 people for a company conference and evening social with the aim to make it the company’s green ever.
Based on the theme ‘Our Business Rocks’ the event featured Papakata tents used to create a sustainable village; the publication of a ‘Green guide for events’ to generate ideas on minimising the impact the event would have on the environment; locally sourced food served in recyclable boxes with vegetarian options encouraged; clothing, food and book donations to local charities and the creation of the World Events logo using the charity donations.
The event was delivered to the same budget as previous years despite a 15% increase in head count demonstrating the company’s sensitivity to the current economic climate.
Highly commended: Adelaide Convention Centre
7th Category: Best Product Launch
Winner: Vok Dams Gruppe for Skoda World Dealer Conference
Vok Dams challenge was to launch the new Skoda Yeti – the company’s first compact SUV – to 4,000 dealers attending their conference in the mountains of Austria.
Not all events have the wow factor. This one did! Using the theme of the Yeti, dealers were welcomed at base camp, with views of the mountains and slopes where by magic Yeti footprints appeared in the snow. After ten steps the Yeti disappeared behind an obstacle and miraculously reappeared as the Skoda which approached the base camp tent at speed, disappearing again before reappearing in the tent in front of the guests for the first time.
Other highlights of the launch included a huge Yeti ice sculpture and the opportunity to drive the car both on and off the road.
The Yeti Expedition 2009 perfectly reflected the brand slogan ‘Simply Clever’. Rarely is it possible to run a central theme through all campaign activity – from product to event motto and the actual event – so cohesively as the launch of the Skoda Yeti
Highly commended: Global Events for Lipton Tea
Commenting on the Awards, chair of judges Jeremy Garbett said: “We have been delighted this year by the highly innovative concepts of the events submitted. We have been particularly impressed with the quality of entries received in our new Award for Sustainable Initiative of the Year. It is clear that the industry, particularly from the entries received from Australia, is taking sustainable issues to heart and putting words into actions.”
