Judges reasons for the winners
Best Female leader in marketing
The winner of the Best Female Leader in Marketing award recognises the individual who has demonstrated marketing leadership in the course of the past year.
Winner: Claire Mason, Man Bites Dog
This category recognises a woman who has demonstrated exemplary leadership over the past year.
Winner Claire is the founder and MD of Man Bites Dog, a 26-strong, multi award-winning B2B communications consultancy specialising in integrated marketing communications programmes for the world’s smartest organisations. A true entrepreneur, Claire founded Man Bites Dog with a £200 overdraft and a clear vision: fusing a focus on commercial impact with creativity rarely found in B2B.
Under Claire’s leadership, the independent consultancy has grown organically (without debt or external finance), and takes pride in a client list that includes some of the world’s top law and advisory firms as well as ABN AMRO, BP, Bupa, Google, Lockheed Martin, Strategy& and ?What If!
And if that’s not enough, Claire and her team have won more than 40 agency and campaign awards including PR Week’s New Consultancy of the Year, B2B Marketing’s Agency of the Year and PRCA Specialist Consultancy of the Year, and have been featured in Forbes; 10 cool Offices; BBC News; Financial Times; B2B Marketing; Radio Five Live to name a few.
Claire’s aptly titled, ‘Leader of the pack’ newspaper style award entry, stood rightly head and shoulders above the rest.
Best female marketer – business to business
This award recognises the best female marketer responsible for the most effective marketing campaign or project, for a product or service in the business-to-business sector.
Winner: Claire Sadler, BT Business
In 2011, despite servicing 900,000 SME customers, BT Business had failed to gain cut through as a brand in its own right. Claire realised that BTB needed not just a new campaign, but a new mission.
Claire came up with a new insight-led creative approach around three strategic customer insights, that unified a fragmented workforce and rallied them around a single purpose, resonated with SME customers and prospects, and raised awareness of the growing breadth of BT’s ICT propositions and services. Not an easy feat.
The results were exemplary. The campaign not only increased interest in the brand, but also converted to sales, with econometrics suggesting the campaign accounted for around 22% of sales over the period. The campaign also generated 6,300 incremental sales over 12 months, and provided an ROI of £2.30 for every £1 spent.
Best female marketer – consumer sector
The winner of the Best Female Marketer – Consumer Sector award recognises the best female marketer responsible for the most effective marketing campaign for a product or service in the consumer sector.
Winner: Sian Sutherland, Mio Skincare
Sian set out on a mission to create the first credible high-intensity bodycare range for active women – centred around the philosophy of fit skin. To get her product in the hands of her target audience, Sian set out to be where these active women are physically and mentally – on the same sites, in the same blogs, the same stores and the same fitness studios. Mio 12 Workout Wonders was born, a year long campaign of monthly ticketed events at the latest and greatest fitness class, hosted by one of the best fitness gurus in top studios in the city – starting with NYC, then London and next year in LA. Each event is topped and tailed with Mio, everyone using Workout Wonder (their muscle motivating gel), having a great workout, and trialling the products after. There was also a charitable donation to ‘Look Good… Feel Better.’
Through her dogged determination and go big or go home approach Sian ensured Mio Skincare is now stocked in over 1000s of stores globally, from Space NK in the US and the UK, Selfridges, Net a Porter and Net a Sporter to LifeTime Fitness USA, CE Bigelow NYC and beauty boutiques, Ritz Carlton, Harrods Urban Retreat, top fitness studios in London – The Library Gym, Lomax, Kx, Frame, Psycle.
Best female marketer – independent consultant
The winner of the Best Female Marketer – Independent Consultant award recognises someone who demonstrates a comprehensive understanding and application of marketing best practice, ambition and innovation in their role as independent marketing consultant.
Winner: Camilla Honey, JFDI
As a new business and marketing specialist, Camilla saw a gap in the market to support agencies with new business, jfdi was born.
Camilla has grown jfdi, without any outside investment over the last 11 years, and has worked with over 300 agencies, including the majority of the top 50, helping them with positioning, new business and marketing strategies, conversion, pitching and growing existing client business.
A true entrepreneur, Camilla lives and breathes what she does, and is a firm believer in the power of giving. jfdi’s London home is based at The House of St Barnabas, a Members club, which supports getting the homeless back into employment via their employment academy. She has in the past been a muse for Everywoman – inspiring, informing, invigorating, and motivating young women and girls about business and enterprise.
Best female marketer – not-for-profit
The winner of the Best Female Marketer – Not-for-Profit award recognises the best female marketer responsible for the most effective marketing campaign for a product or service in the Not-for-Profit sector.
Winner: Sarah Francis, Autism West Midlands
As Head of Marketing & Communications for Autism West Midlands Sarah developed the concept of “Connect”: a UK social network for families of people with autism. Her challenge was to raise awareness of the network, reach 1500 sign-ups within the first 6 months, 500 eLearning course enrolments within year 1, respond to all customer feedback within 24 hours, and generate at least 1 positive case study / success story each month.
Not only did she smash all her targets by over 100% and deliver the project in line with the budget, but there are plans to scale the project nationally to align with government strategic plans, with the possibility of further funding for the charity. The judges were particularly impressed.
Female fast track marketer of the year
This award is in recognition of someone who has relatively short experience in marketing, six years or less, but has made a significant impact in their business – demonstrating best marketing practice with tangible results.
Winner: Gemma Davies, The Marketing Practice
Gemma Davies works for The Marketing Practice (TMP), a 100-person B2B agency based in Oxfordshire. Having risen through the ranks from graduate to New Business Account Director in less than four years, fearless marketer Gemma, is responsible for generating the new account pipeline and delivering exceptional service for the agency, running a budget of £400,000 per year, and a team of 11 people.
One of Gemma’s flagship new business wins was her work with Salesforce.com (SFDC), where she piloted a Demand Generation programme to deliver against a target pipeline per quarter. The campaign beat all its targets, increased the average deal size, generated pipeline and was so successful it has been rolled out into new industries across the company, as well as being shortlisted for the 2014 Best Lead Nurturing Campaign at the 2014 B2B Marketing Awards.
Gemma Davies has changed the game for small business on small budgets.
Highly commended: Alice Pelton, News UK
Customer Experience Manager for News UK, Alice was solely responsible for defining, designing, testing and coordinating the build of the ‘Dream Team’ – the biggest fantasy football game in the UK with in excess of 1.1 million players – from the registration journey to the end-to-end web and app acquisition and cancellation customer experience.
Even though she’d only been in the role for 2 years, Alice managed a team of decision architects, optimisation agencies and UX designers to map the optimal user-flows, write the tone of voice, produce and iterate prototypes and conduct several rounds of web usability testing.
The project was a huge success. Not only was the acquisition conversion funnel the highest performing checkout journey in News UK history with 130,000 players registering in the first six days, and 640,000 trialists registering 2 weeks later, BUT it doubled the overall Sun+ subscriber base and increased their ARPU by 30% YOY.
Special award for outstanding contribution to marketing
This award recognises someone who inspires greatness, who challenges the norms of marketing, is passionate about the development of women within the industry, and whose energy and commitment has delivered outstanding results.
Winner: Lindsay Pattison, Maxus
Lindsay is one of the most prominent female figures in the UK agency sector.
Lindsay joined Maxus UK in 2009 as the company’s first ever female CEO with a vision to drive the Maxus brand to the next level. She took over an agency of 30 people billing £40m and in five years has transformed it into a top ten (#8) UK agency employing more than 200 people and billing upwards of £400m, and has been confirmed as the top 10 media agency with the most sustained growth over the last 5 years. She also developed a set of global values called PACE (Passionate, Agile, Collaborative and Entrepreneurial), which have become a bible for Maxus, and the people they hire right through to the work they produce and beyond.
Lindsay’s list of achievements is endless and inspiring: she is the president of WACL, the first female agency head to join the World Economic Forum Global Council on the Future of Media, the only woman from the UK media sector to be shortlisted for the prestigious Lloyds Banking Group First Women Awards; she’s spoken at Industry events including the Facebook Influencer Summit, Google Zeitgeist, Advertising Association’s Front Foot event; chaired the annual industry gathering, Media 360; NABS (advertising charity) mentor for rising industry; and selected by Director magazine as a candidate for its Women Changing the Business World campaign. A deserving winner.
Women in Marketing Company Award
The winner of The Women in Marketing Company Award (a nominated award) recognises an organisation or company that has actively supported the development and establishment of women in senior marketing leadership roles in the organisation.
Winner: Ogilvy & Mather Group UK
Ogilvy & Mather UK is committed to improving the lives of women at Ogilvy and actively supporting their development and career progression to leadership roles within the agency.
Women make up 54% of the total workforce at Ogilvy and more than a third (35%) of CEO’s across the Group are female, and the company is committed to improving the lives of women at Ogilvy and actively supporting their development and career progression to leadership roles within the agency. There many initiatives include: running a series of in house training programmes to women in middle-management roles; actively encouraging employees to participate in Bloom, which is known as the mini WACL for mid management females, and in WPPWomen, a cross company mentoring and development initiative for senior women, which prepares high-potential women in WPP operating companies for the next level of leadership. The Women@Ogilvy network is also due to launch in Autumn 2014. It’s aim is to create a support network for Ogilvy’s women to connect them at varying stages of their careers through events, talks, forums, coaching and mentoring.
Ogilvy also support women through life changes offering an enhanced maternity leave package, which includes maternity pay for women that have been at Ogilvy between 26 weeks and two years, and two years plus, and a return to work bonus based on length of service. (Since 2010, 84% of women have returned to Ogilvy after their maternity leave.) Oglivy & Mather illustrates the essence of the Women in Marketing Company award.
Judges Pioneer of Marketing Award
Winner: Rita Clifton, CBE
The doyenne of branding Rita was the obvious choice for the Pioneer of Marketing Award.
An international branding expert, Rita has worked with many of the world’s leading companies on their brand strategy, and from national start-ups to mature global corporations across all sectors. Championing the principle of ‘brand as the central organising principle’ in successful businesses, Rita has introduced a range of new products and services, from brand futures to internal brand management and digital branding.
A regular guest on TV and radio Rita has featured on CNN, BBC, Channel 4, Sky and Bloomberg to Radio 4’s The Bottom Line with Evan Davies, and on Sky News with Jeff Randall. She has also appeared on the BBC TV series ‘Business Nightmares’ and ‘Business Boomers’, and the Steve Jobs documentary ‘Billion Dollar Hippy’, as well as Newsnight, the Daily Politics Show, Any Questions? with Jonathan Dimbleby and Sky’s Murnaghan.
A fascinating and witty speaker, Rita has spoken around the world on subjects as diverse as leadership, corporate reputation, innovation and communicating sustainability, as well as all aspects of branding and marketing, including personal and nation branding, branding in the digital age and how to build a world class brand. Her writing has included the best-selling book ‘The Future of Brands’, and two editions of The Economist book ‘Brands & Branding’.
She has been voted one of the 75 Women of Achievement in the fields of advertising, media and marketing over the past 75 years, and was shortlisted for the Credit Suisse Outstanding Business Woman of the Year. And to top it off Rita was awarded a CBE in the 2014 New Year’s Honours list for services to the advertising industry.