It’s always fabulous getting recognized for doing great work. Basking in the glow of appreciation from your boss, colleagues, and industry peers for a job well done makes getting up and going to work each morning a much better experience.
When that recognition is conferred at a glittering black-tie event, widely considered the peak of attainment in your market, it’s even sweeter!
That’s why Validity is delighted to be a headline sponsor of the DMA Awards for the fourth consecutive year. The DMAs are among the most prestigious marketing awards in the United Kingdom. They are a proving ground for work that works, showcasing the strategies, creatives, and (most importantly) results that deliver true marketing excellence.
Congratulations are in order!
While it’s a big deal for Validity to be sponsoring, it’s an even bigger deal for all our customers who have been shortlisted. We couldn’t be more delighted to share the spotlight with all these major brands when the big night comes around in early December. Congratulations to the following brands!
- Adidas
- BT (2 nominations)
- Halfords
- Samsung (5 nominations)
- Specsavers (2 nominations)
- Sport England
- The Body Shop
- Toolstation
- TUI (3 nominations)
- WeightWatchers (5 nominations)
- Xylem
Remember: DMA stands for Data & Marketing Association. At Validity, we’ve always believed great data underpins great customer relationships, and we’re hugely proud to be a common thread weaving through all these richly deserved nominations.
If you’d like to have a look at the full list of worthy potential winners, across all 36 categories, you can find them here.
What’s changed in marketing this year?
Of course, a key part of any awards program is the judging. This year, it was a real pleasure to review an outstanding set of submissions across the Email, Data Storytelling, Retail and Automotive categories, along with my Validity colleagues Antony Humphreys, Elliot Hogg, and Coralie Levi.
Although we judged independently of each other (and are required to maintain a degree of confidentiality!), it was clear that as the world recovers from two years of global disruption, some aspects of marketing have changed, possibly for good—and certainly for the better.
Greater focus on building genuine relationships
Across these (potentially) award-winning programs, there has been a clear shift away from sales-focused messaging. Instead, there’s a greater focus on building genuine relationships with customers by providing support and displaying empathy. This is especially important in a brutal economic climate. (People never forget who looked after them when times were tough!)
Increased use of value statements
Value statements are marketing messages where businesses remind their customers of all the ways they benefit from their relationship. Smart use of historical data—and clever use of data visualization to bring these benefits to life—are playing key roles in driving customer retention at a time when discretionary spending is being reined in.
Increased use of artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence is now omnipresent. In explaining how they achieved the segmentations that drove their highly successful targeting and personalization, many programs described their approach the same way: “We fed our customer data to our AI engine and let it do its thing!” AI also featured prominently as entrants described their approaches to content optimization, dynamic content, and predictive eye-tracking.
Innovative use of new marketing metrics
Marketers are also using new metrics to measure their success. Many entries illustrated their improvement using positive variances in NPS scores and customer feedback. At a time when privacy-based initiatives are making accurate engagement harder to measure, innovative use of new metrics that better reflect customer behavior is exciting to see.
Stay tuned for the upcoming DMA Awards!
We can’t wait to learn who the gold winners will be. (Hopefully as many of our brilliant customers as possible!)
December 6th still feels SO far away. But in reality, we’re only a few weeks away from pulling on our evening best and stepping up on stage to personally present “Best Use of Email” and “Best Data Storytelling!”
Want to be among the first to learn who this year’s big winners are? Keep an eye on the DMA Awards page for the latest news. And if you fancy a shot at glory yourself next year, start a conversation with us now about crafting an award-winning submission of your own!