UPDATED: January 29, 2015
Direct Marketing News recently challenged readers to show how they’re using technology and data to go beyond the usual and be more innovative with their marketing. Nearly 100 companies responded—to our call for entries for the inaugural Marketing&Tech Innovation Awards.
The awards recognize the outstanding use of technology and data to create innovative marketing in seven categories: content marketing, cross-channel integration, digital print, email marketing, marketing automation, mobile, and social. But the awards program isn’t just about the tools marketers use to innovate. Data scientists and marketing technologists are indispensible drivers of ensuring that technology is an asset, not just a tool. The Stars of MarTech categories honor those experts.
After a round of judging by the DMN editorial staff, select entries made their way to a team of subject matter experts for final judging. Judges for the 2015 Marketing&Tech Innovation Awards are:
- Aaron Cano, VP Marketing Planning, Analysis and Operations, FreshDirect
- Mike Eichorst, SVP, Citibank
- Chad Ghastin, Business Leader, CRM, U.S. Digital Marketing, MasterCard
- Paul Greenberg, Owner, The 56 Group
- Michael Kildale, Senior Marketing Consultant, Evol8tion
- Esteban Kolsky, Principal and Founder, ThinkJar LLC
- Marshall Lager, Founder and Managing Principal, Third Idea Consulting
- Kim Land, Marketing Director, Spartanburg Herald-Journal
- Brent Leary, Partner, CRM Essentials
- Keith O’Brien, VP, digital strategy, Haymarket Media (DMN‘s parent company)
- Ramon Ray, Small Business Evangelist, InfusionSoft, and Publisher, Smart Hustle
Finalists stood out for their strategy, innovative approach, and results. DMN announced the winners at our 2015 Marketing&Tech Innovation Summit on Thursday, January 29 in New York.
The finalists–and winners–of the 2015 Marketing&Tech Innovation Awards are:
Innovation Awards
Content marketing innovation
Klick Health – Uses a digitally enhanced hardcover book to explain its digital marketing services
Mohegan Sun – Links its CMS, website, and on-property Wayfinder kiosks to ensure that customers have the most up-to-date information on events, offers, and more
SHIFT Communications – Provides a blog about communications and PR that features guidance-oriented tools, such as a Facebook calculator that enable clients to determine what it might cost to reach its audience
And the winner is… Klick Health
Cross-channel campaign integration innovation
Hunkemöller International B.V. – Integrated email (in 13 languages), personalized app messaging and online product recommendations, in-store member recognition, print, and social to support its customer engagement and loyalty program
Klick Health – Used a digitally enhanced hardcover book to explain its digital marketing services, supported by digital advertising, a specialized landing page, email campaign, and telephone follow-up
Mohu – Linked efforts on Facebook, Twitter, email, PR, and Kickstarter to make enough noise to be heard over much larger and more established competitors
And the winner is… Klick Health
Digital print innovation
There was only one finalist: Klick Health – Uses a digitally enhanced hardcover book to explain its digital marketing services
And the winner is… Klick Health
Email marketing innovation
Best Western – Relies on real-time contextual messaging to personalize emails, increase clicks, and drive revenue
Citi – Uses mathematical models and testing to find the best-performing semantic elements within its email messages, and then optimize campaigns to improve performance
InterContinental Hotels Group – Customizes offers to loyalty program members by using customer action triggers to deliver contextually relevant messages and offers
And the winner is… Citi
Marketing automation innovation
Cetera Financial Group – Nurtures and engages marketing-qualified leads using a comprehensive omnichannel touch strategy
Lenovo – Delivers an individually personalized experience to each website visitor
Stanford Graduate School of Business – Uses a nurturing campaign to bring dormant leads back to life
And the winner is… Lenovo
Mobile innovation
Ancestry.com – Employs in-app testing to understand user needs, optimize the user experience, and increase revenue
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) – Uses different mobile interactions based on advocate types to simplify the processes for supporters to take action
And the winner is… PETA
Social innovation
Dice – Created #Dice141 Twitter Job Cards to improve the social recruiting and referral process
Mitel – Developed a training curriculum, trained more than 2,000 employees and channel partners on social media basics and 350 salespeople on social selling, and used gamification to ensure adoption
Translation/State Farm – Used social, a fictional insurance agent, and an NBA tie-in to bring to life State Farm’s aim be a leader in assisting customers
And the winner is… Translation/State Farm
Stars of MarTech
Data Scientist
John Bates, Senior Product Manager for Data Science & Predictive Marketing Solutions, Adobe Systems – Uses a data-science-as-a-service approach to provide digital analysts with the ability to perform many of the tasks of a data scientist
Paulo Costa, Director, Team Lead, Advanced Analytics, Cisco Systems – Believes in the democratization of data, so he simplifies the consumption of advanced analytical models for marketers and salespeople
Kevin Geraghty, SVP of Advanced Analytics and Decision Sciences, 360i – Seeks creative, data-driven solutions to marketing problems; for example, he devised a way to use the mathematical technique Kalman Filtering (developed for rocket telemetry) to predict keyword performance
And the winner is… 360i’s Kevin Geraghty
Marketing technologist
Liz Pedro, Director of Customer Success Marketing, Mitel – Elevated a product meant for customer advocacy into one of Mitel’s most valuable marketing tools, one now used to improve lead generation, increase social shares, enhance employee engagement, and educate partners
Siping Roussin, Senior Manager of Optimization and Personalization, Lenovo – Recognized an opportunity to leverage consumer data to create a more personalized experience for Lenovo.com visitors, which resulted in a more than 40% lift in order conversions
May Xu, Business Architect and Product Manager, LinkedIn – Created a multi-touch attribution methodology that provides campaign-level attribution and helps to calculate ROI for individual campaigns and channels.
And the winner is… Mitel’s Liz Pedro
