CIPDRMAs - A Judges view

The final round of judging at the CIPDs was held over a full day at Redactives headquarters over in Farringdon. My fellow judges included senior peeps from B&Q, Rolls Royce, CIPD and was overseen my Anthony Moran from Redactive. The whole event was recorded giving Redactive enough material to blackmail us for years to come.

I'm not going to go into every single winner here, but pick out a few I feel need a mention. So with out further ado, we'll kick off with Best Art Direction.

Best Art Direction - Adidas
Quite a bit of discussion here about what good art direction really was. Being an art director by trade it's been said (once) I know a little about art direction and I personally loved the winner. This idea lives and dies by the strength of it's art direction, felt perfectly on brand and was well targeted. Split adverts like this are notoriously difficult to do well, but I can't fault this one. Maximum had a great outdoor advert for Eneco that used the power of the sun (literally) which everyone loved too, but in my heart of hearts I felt this was a winner of best outdoor, not art direction.

Best Press Advert/Best Copy - MI5
Having worked on the MI5 and MI6 accounts I know how hard it is to be creative, deliver results AND create work that befits the crown. This does all three. The copy describes the story of a stolen car through police reports, covert intel and records. It's as real to life as you can get to doing the job it advertises, meaning it perfectly targets the right candidate. My only criticism is the 'Terrorist Cell' bolded out. It didn't need it, though I have a feeling this wasn't put in by a creative. What will be interesting to see is if Penna, who created the advert, can continue to deliver award winning work for the security services now they've got rid of their creative department. Only time will tell.

Recruitment Effectiveness - Deloitte
There were some really effective entries in this category - as you'd expect - but not that many creative ones. The Deloitte entry cleverly wove on-campus marketing with social media, producing great results and more than a few dodgy charactertures. On the Deloitte Facebook page students could tag their illustrations and the one that received the most 'Likes' won a prize. The winner had over 4000 Likes. There are some global company pages that have less Likes. Great job.

Best use of Social Media - Office for National Statistics
A personal favourite of mine, this campaign demonstrated that social media isn't just resigned to graduate campaigns. The campaign, which used Facebook, Twitter and blogs to create a real online buzz, was to recruit a Deputy Director of Digital Publishing. But, rather than simply post the job spec online, they built a community of followers through intriguing, interesting and engaging posts and tweets. When that community was truly engaged with, the role was revealed. Five of the six shortlisted candidates came from social media. Brave client. Great win for the industry.

Best recruitment website - LV=
Some really strong entries here as you'd expect, but the winner stood out from the off. The LV= site has been around for a few years now, but every year it's updated and improved. Content is refreshed and new technology embraced. How many other companies can say the same thing - how long have you used the same profile videos for? The LV= site was strong on brand and content, and easy to navigate around. The mobile version was the icing on the cake.

Campaign of the year - The Army
A lot of people will have seen this flash up on the screen and said 'Well if we had that budget'. But the Territorial Army campaign, that used live streaming reports from the front line in Afghanistan to change the perception of them as 'weekend warriors' as surprisingly cost effective. True, the media budget was sizeable, but what made it a winner in my opinion was the idea itself. Simple, effective and memorable. The results were just as good.

Grand Prix - Mars
Picking a winner here was a reasonably easy decision in the end. While the Mars Tweetshop only picked up one gong on the night (prior to this one), it was second place in a number of categories. The tweet-fueled vending machine worked wonders with graduates, but was just as successful at re-educating their own employees as it toured campuses and factories up and down the country. It helped change perceptions of Mars (we do more than chocolate) and was pretty brave (not everyone was happy with their 'f-ing jar of Dolmio' and told Mars online). A worthy winner for Mars and a great success for Tonic. Small agencies rock. We should know.