Digital marketing agency VML cleaned up at the 21st Annual AIMIA Awards last night, grabbing the Grand Prix category for its Rip Curl Search GPS initiative.
The AIMIA Awards, also known as The Amys, celebrate the exceptional work undertaken by Australia’s top digital industry talent over the past year.
Throughout the course of the evening, AIMIA presented 17 Amy Awards and recognised the different levels of achievement by announcing 12 highly commended awards. This year’s finalists incorporated innovative technology in creative campaigns using eye-tracking, 3D printing, data science and robotics.
AIMIA President Tim O’Neill spoke about the ever-changing digital landscape, observing it had shifted yet again in the last year. “I think people who work in the digital industry are more adept to change than anyone. If you work in digital and don’t like change, you’re in the wrong industry!”
AIMIA CEO Rob Wong added: “We’d also like to congratulate Rip Curl Search GPS – VML Australia, for being awarded this year’s Amy Grand Prix category. This is an outstanding entry of international standard that showed superb integration of the brand and consumer connection.”
Wong also inducted Paul McCarthy into AIMIA’s Hall of Fame. “I’m honoured to induct Paul McCarthy into AIMIA’s Hall of Fame as this year’s recipient of our Outstanding Industry Contribution Award.”
Commenting on this year’s entries, Matt Griffin, co-judging chair and chief executive Deepend Group emphasised, “with ‘Innovation’ being the hot topic for 2014, it was no surprise to see the Most Innovative Product or Service category being flooded with entries this year.”
Matt also explained this year’s new judging process and its importance for the awards’ future. “One of the fundamental changes we made to this year’s judging process was to insist that an Amy is only awarded to work that judges felt grew the industry as a whole in the specific category.”
See below for the full list of winners.