Any work that appeared online during the period 1 November 2018 and 13 December 2019 is eligible, and early-bird entries receive a 10% discount (and IAB SA members are eligible for an even further discount).

Andrea Quaye, Vice President of Marketing at Anheuser-Busch InBev and Jury President of the 2020 Bookmark Awards, says, "The Bookmark Awards sets the benchmark for digital excellence in South Africa. To win at the Bookmarks demonstrates excellence in achieving business results through the power of digital. My goal is to find creative and innovative work that lights up the scoreboard through the achievement of true business metrics – brave work that strives to beat the benchmark in context of the campaign and brand objectives.”

Paula Hulley, the IAB SA’s CEO, adds, "The Bookmark Awards celebrate the body’s key strategic pillar to Build Brands Digitally and the award’s core values of creativity, innovation and excellence. The awards consistently strive to offer a host of practical examples of how marketers, agencies and publishers have executed digital campaigns to deliver sustainable impact on their business.”

Key additions and updates to the categories

As digital’s pervasive ability to uplift business through scale, pace and audience connectivity continues to grow, the Bookmark Awards have added four new categories to demonstrate a business’s ability to deliver on these capabilities.

The addition of recognising a company’s hard work and their investment in the people who propel businesses forward, The Employee Experience Platform entry demonstrates how any platform, digital employee experience or company intranet that can demonstrate uplift and effectiveness in employee communications or upliftment in human resources improving employee welfare and overall business performance.

The power of digital to build effective interbusiness communication to ensure brand consistency, deployment and communication is recognised in the addition of the Brandsystem or Brandfile Platform to showcase how a business has used an internal brand platform to create increased efficiency and effectiveness in their internal corporate, partner and brand communication.

The Best Direct Brand or Best Online Business Special Honours award has been introduced to recognise the ability of digital to build a business through direct customer relationships with the deployment of non-traditional, non-linear supply chains and revenue results from the direct relationships between the company and its customers. The business does not necessarily live online only (think UCOOK, ONEDAYONLY, Yuppiechef).

And in recognition of today’s economic and entrepreneurial climate, the Bookmark Awards introduces The Breakthrough on A Budget entry, for companies to creative use of modest budgets and/or resources to create maximum impact in a digital marketing campaign.

To support the industry in celebrating its leaders and innovators, the IAB SA has also made the Special Honours category free for IAB SA members to enter.

The evolution of digital

As digital evolves and new technology comes to the fore, we see the following entries moving out of the Emerging Digital Technology and Channels category to other, now more relevant categories: The Bots, Messaging and Dark Social and Use of Programmatic Media move to the Channels category and the Customer Experience Design entry moves to the Platform category. The Microsites entry has been renamed Campaign Microsites and moves from the Platform category to the Channel category and from the Builders Panel to the Marketers Panel. Branded Content moves from the Channel category to the Campaign category.

The iterative nature of digital to improve results through optimisation

The iterative nature of digital to improve with continuous feedback loops for optimising better results also sees some entries now benefitting from being allowed entries over multiple years, as long as there is clear evidence in the entry on how, where and why the improvements were made. This includes the Craft UX entry and the Platform Innovation entry.

Improvements in measurement structure

The entry criteria measurement structure has been optimised to ensure the categories are in the best space to showcase the results most relevant to their purpose. One of the updates for 2020 includes the Platform category, where the % weighting score for Technical Accomplishment or Difficulty and Innovation has increased from 30% to 40% of the total score, with Creative Excellence still relevant at 30% of the score and Results Delivered at 30% of the score.

A focus on business excellence

There is no doubt that digital interventions have the power to transform business, but our industry currently faces the challenge of creating a clear set of criteria for the measurement of success. As we look to the future, it is the responsibility of the IAB, its members and the industry to create the benchmarks for business excellence in the digital economy. The Bookmark Awards presents the opportunity to develop measurement data to develop benchmarks for business excellence, and our current awards platform and data is a strong foundation for this to take place. This is why the Bookmarks have the potential to affect industry change with the IAB SA and CONNECT Benchmarking report that has commenced under the leadership of Melissa van Zyl, Partner at M&C Saatchi Connect and previous IAB SA board member.

Why enter?

This is the time to come together to showcase cutting-edge work, compete and inspire each other. Not only does it position your business as a digital pioneer and business leader, but your work also contributes to the bigger picture. The data and case studies you share will contribute to wider industry benchmarking, which will empower all South African businesses to thrive in the digital economy. We look forward to seeing your great work. To learn more about all entry criteria and Ts&Cs, visit the Bookmarks website.

The 12th Annual Bookmark Awards are on Thursday, 19 March 2020, at The Galleria in Sandton, Johannesburg, following the IAB SA- and MASA-endorsed Nedbank IMC Conference. Book your 2020 Bookmark Award tickets here: https://www.howler.co.za/events/iab-bookmark-awards-2020-5a7d. IAB SA Member discounts apply. For sponsorship opportunities email IAB CEO Paula Hulley: ten.asbai@aluaP.