Newpost

 Innovation and clever use of technology

This is a throwback to when Damian created the Golden Spider Awards in 

1997 and the Digital Media Awards in 2002 (both still giving gongs) – the 

same criteria were used then. Ultimately we were looking for something that 

pushed the digital boundaries by being achingly smart. Without reinventing 

the wheel we wanted something that made us wonder ‘why hasn’t anybody 

thought of that before?’

Creativity and presentation

This book is all about creativity, but it’s how the campaign engaged us as 

readers, writers and digital marketers that really mattered. Later you will read 

opinions from several digital marketing experts who commented on some of 

the campaigns. While their opinions didn’t necessarily reflect our own selec-

tion of the campaigns, we were mindful of how ‘engaged’ they did or didn’t 

feel.

The standard of presentation was another important factor. Online and mobile 

channels impose certain creative constraints but also offer possibilities. What 

we wanted to see here was campaigns that made you sit up and perhaps 

even utter the magic words ‘that’s cool’!

Return on investment

While many still feel the internet is a direct response medium (most of them 

traditional agencies who are still lurking on the periphery of digital) and should 

be judged purely on percentiles and financial returns, others, ourselves 

included, feel a bit differently. Whether the return on investment (ROI) was in 

fact sales, profit, market share, new customers or brand awareness, we 

wanted to see engagement. In particular we wanted to see campaigns that 

emphasized engagement from the very outset and understoo