Earlier in the year we were nominated for three awards at this year’s Kent Digital Awards
Tonight we would sit alongside some of the best digital talent in the county to see who would be picking up the prizes, for us, the excitement of becoming an award winning marketing agency.
We arrived early to the Village Urban Resort in Maidstone, grabbed a drink at the bar and caught up with some former colleagues who had also been nominated, before being seated for dinner.
Whilst tucking into a delicious meal, we enjoyed getting to know some of the other entrants, judges and sponsors on our table including; Locate in Kent (who picked up the Spirit of Kent award), Radiance by Helena (also picking up a Silver award), Lee & Maria from Sleeping Giant Media (Sponsors), Jaye Nolan and Clive Reddihough of the Chartered Institute of Marketing who were all a pleasure to talk to.
As dinner came to an end and everyone was polishing off their desert, we were introduced to James Redmond who performed a short comedy routine, as broadcaster Robin Bailey prepared to announce the award winners.
Comedy over, drinks topped up and nerves through the roof, the award ceremony kicked off.
The first category was for Best Blog. A category we had been nominated for… and the Bronze Award goes to… Ten & Bourne with Sony Computer Entertainment Europe!!
We’d won our first award!!
A little stunned we clambered up onto the stage to collect the plaque and have a few photos taken.
What a start to the night! Over the moon we sat back down and celebrated the other award winners. Congratulations go out to Giraffe CVs and She Who Bakes who took home Silver and Gold.
As we joined in the celebrations we were pleased to see our friends over at Ecce Media picking up two gold and one silver award.
Our second nominated category came around quickly; Best Website for Sports & Entertainment. We weren’t so confident about this category, being up against some tough competition from WeLoveDigital and Fore!Women. Bronze surprisingly went to WeLoveDigital (I was certain they would get gold). Even more surprising, we took home silver! Our second award of the night. If we weren’t already pretty pleased with ourselves, we certainly were now. Congratulations to Darenth Valley Golf Course who took home gold.
Our final category was for Online Marketing Campaign, and we had our fingers crossed for our client Trulawn. Sadly we weren’t able to make it a hat-trick, but we were pleased to see our former colleague Chris Surridge take away Bronze with his company White Fish Marketing.
As the awards came to a close, we took the opportunity to network and congratulate the other winners, before heading home proud of our achievements. I had always thought that awards were a little too political – the wrong ‘type’ of recognition, however, maybe with the KDAs being a little different (no entry fees or long-winded processes), I’ve changed my mind a little. The motivational boost we took away from that night was incredible, we were buzzing for days! If that feeling could be passed onto everyone involved then I can really see the benefits of these awards. We’re now looking forward to next year and aiming to take home gold.
