As the final entry deadline for the 2013 Stevie® Awards for Sales & Customer Service, the world's top business awards for contact center, customer service, business development, and sales professionals, approaches on January 15, 2013, we wanted to highlight three marketing awards that should be of interest. (If you haven't yet done so, you can begin your submission process by requesting an entry kit here. The entry kit contains all of the instructions you need about how to prepare and submit your entries.) 

The Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service feature more than 125 sales awards, customer service awards, and call center awards categories honoring sales excellence and best customer service practices for individuals, teams, and departments, plus categories this year for products and service and solution providers. The 2013 awards will recognize achievements since July 1, 2011.

Three categories in particular that should be of interest to marketing professionals include:

1. Outbound Marketing Program of the Year
   Recognizing marketing programs that use advertising, promotions, public relations and sales.
2. Inbound Marketing Program of the Year
   Recognizing marketing programs that rely on content generation, lead development, and prospect cultivation.
3. Demand Generation Program of the Year
   Recognizing sales organizations (and their colleagues in marketing) for their demand generation programs.

Entries in these categories require an essay of up to 525 words describing the nominee’s achievements since July 1, 2011; links to any online materials that support the nomination; and a brief (125 word) biography of the nominee.

2012 Gold Stevie Award winners include Nationwide Financial (Demand Generation Program of the Year), CenturyLink (Outbound Marketing Program of the Year), and Monitronics International (Inbound Marketing Program of the Year), among others. A complete list of 2012 honorees is available at www.StevieAwards.com/Sales.

Winners of the 2013 edition will be announced at an awards banquet at Paris Hotel, Las Vegas, Nevada, USA, on February 25, 2013.

Don't hesitate to contact us with any questions regarding the 2013 Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service.  Email us at help@stevieawards.com or call us at + 1 703-547-8389 and we'll get back to you right away.

Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina, Durham, NC, USA won a Stevie® Award for Marketing Campaign of the Year in the marketing awards categories of The 2011 American Business Awards, the premier business awards program in the U.S.A. (The final entry deadline for the 2012 ABAs is April 25, you can request an entry kit here and you will receive it right away.) Here we look at how Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina (BCBSNC) used emerging technology to help the lives of their customers.

Seeking innovative ways to reach their constituency, the marketing award winner developed HealthNAV, an application for the iPhone to help customers save time and money. Easily accessible, the app has several features, including:

• An Urgent Care Finder that locates the closest in-network urgent care center anywhere you are in North Carolina and then maps the way there, and
• A Find-A-Drug feature that gives average pricing for formulary drugs, including cheaper generic options, to help users save money on medications.

BCBSNC used best marketing practices to run their HealthNAV campaign which encouraged customers to download the free app. Running between October 1 and December 31, 2010, the campaign focused on advertising that would connect with people on the go. The insurance company:

1. Placed ads in North Carolina’s three major airports,
2. Placed posters in a popular sports and entertainment arena,
3. Aired a radio spot during local broadcasts, and
4. Used online banner ads.

BCBSNC's use of innovative technology paid off; during the campaign period, the app was:

• Downloaded 5,504 times,
• Opened 8,186 times,
• The Urgent Care function was accessed 6,483 times, and
• Find-a-Drug was accessed 4,449 times.

Through the development of their HealthNAV app, BCBSNC successfully showed customers that the company is both tech-savvy and looks for ways to make health care less expensive and more convenient for customers.

About Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina
Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina delivers innovative health care products, services and information to more than 3.7 million members. For 76 years, the company has served its customers by offering health insurance at a competitive price and has served the people of North Carolina through support of community organizations, programs and events that promote good health. To learn more, visit www.bcbsnc.com.

We have added 43 new marketing awards categories to The 2012 International Business Awards to help marketing professionals highlight their successes. (The 2012 IBAs, the world's premiere business awards program, is now open for entries. Showcase your organization's best marketing practices and submit entries by the 11 April early-bird deadline for discounted entry fees. Don't worry if you can't make the 11 April early-bird deadline, the entry deadline is 16 May and we will continue to accept late entries through 27 June; request your entry kit here.)

Our marketing award categories for Marketing Campaign of the Year - Industry include:

• Accounting
• Advertising, Marketing, & Public Relations
• Aerospace & Defense
• Automotive & Transport Equipment
• Banking
• Business Services
• Chemicals
• Computer Hardware
• Computer Software
• Computer Services
• Conglomerates
• Consumer Products - Durables
• Consumer Products - Non-Durables
• Diversified Services
• Electronics
• Energy
• Financial Services
• Food & Beverage
• Health Products & Services
• Hospitality & Leisure
• Internet/New Media
• Insurance
• Legal
• Manufacturing
• Materials & Construction
• Media & Entertainment
• Metals & Mining
• Non-Profit Organizations
• Real Estate
• Retail
• Pharmaceuticals
• Telecommunications
• Transportation
• Utilities

Our Marketing Campaign of the Year - Specialty Categories include:

• Business-to-Business Advertising Campaign of the Year
• Business-to-Business Marketing Campaign of the Year
• Consumer Advertising Campaign of the Year
• Consumer Marketing Campaign of the Year
• Mobile Marketing Campaign of the Year
• Online Marketing Campaign of the Year
• Retail/Merchandising Marketing Campaign of the Year
• Small-Budget Marketing Campaign of the Year (<$3 million / €5 million)
• Viral Marketing Campaign of the Year

Our communication award categories include:

• Marketing Department of the Year
• Marketing Team of the Year
• Marketing Executive of the Year

Want more communications awards? There are a number of other IBA categories that should be of interest to marketing professionals, including many of the annual report awards and other literature categories, website awards categories, app awards categories, video awards categories, and live event awards categories.

Kirby Wadsworth, Vice President of Global Marketing for F5 Networks, is Chair of the final judging committee for the marketing awards categories of The 2012 American Business Awards. (The final entry deadline for 10th Annual ABAs, the premier business awards program in the U.S.A., is April 25; request your entry kit now.) Here Kirby shares best marketing tips for business-to-business marketing.

What are your top 3 tips on how to make your mark in business-to-business marketing?

1. Align marketing and sales efforts into one holistic effort. 
   Marketing must start a conversation that sales is ready and willing to carry to conclusion.  Success here requires alignment of targets, content, training, process, and compensation systems. Research proves that companies that focus on sales and marketing alignment outperform those that allow the two functions to operate orthogonally.

2. Measurement is the basis for alignment. 
   Marketing operations should be your first investment. Fill this group with experts in data analysis who are fully up to speed on modern marketing automation systems. Don’t be afraid of what you find initially. Measurement allows you to find and fix leaks in the system, and you will find many ugly ones when you first start measuring.

3. Make sure you have broad cross-functional agreement on key performance indicators (KPIs). 
   Make sure everyone understands and agrees with the areas you are measuring and reporting, then stick to it and report transparently on a regular basis. It's important to keep educating internal audiences, especially in finance, sales, and executive offices, on the value marketing is bringing to the business, and to do it without “taking credit.” Uniquely, marketing is both a service organization and a leadership organization, but is rarely appreciated for its contributions to pipeline. 

What item of news recently caught your eye and why?
The evolution in appreciation for Big Data and Business Intelligence—these areas are quickly becoming the hottest topics in a decade. I'm particularly fascinated by the potential for virtually every enterprise to leverage the power of Big Data to improve customer experience, create customized offers, and differentiate themselves.  In a lot of ways, Big Data feels like the Internet did back in the late 1990s: Lots of hype, but also massive underlying substance.

What is your favorite sport or hobby?
I use my time in airplanes and hotels to write. I'm 100,000 words into a paranormal novel that takes place in 1850s Nantucket.  It’s a lot of fun.

If you could choose another profession, what would it be?
Bestselling author…

What quality or qualities do you most value in your business associates?
Honesty and a sense of humor.

As someone at the top of your profession, what keeps you inspired or makes you hit the ground running in the morning?
I get my motivation helping others learn and grow in our profession.  Teaching and coaching others forces me to really know my stuff—or at least stay one step ahead of my employees and students.  They push pretty hard, and keep me on my toes. My best day is the day I can help someone overcome a problem, learn something new, or take on a new responsibility.

About Kirby Wadsworth:
Kirby Wadsworth is Vice President of Global Marketing for F5 Networks and leads all marketing-demand generation and branding functions worldwide. Kirby has played a key role in many projects including the installation F5's global marketing function which delivers outbound communication, branding, PR/AR, marketing services, web experience, and global demand campaigns, introducing F5’s first marketing automation system, and creating a global revenue campaign model to align marketing with sales objectives. Prior to F5, Kirby served as Senior Vice President of Marketing and Business Development for several startups including Acopia Networks, Revivio, and Storability. Kirby has been named a Stevie® Award Finalist twice, and F5 received the Stevie Award for Best Marketing Campaign in The 2011 American Business Awards.

About F5 Networks:
F5 Networks, Inc., a global leader in Application Delivery Networking (ADN), helps some of the world’s largest enterprises and service providers to realize the full value of virtualization, cloud computing, and on-demand IT. F5® solutions help integrate disparate technologies to provide greater control of the infrastructure, improve application delivery and data management, and give users seamless, secure, and accelerated access to applications from their corporate desktops and smart devices. F5 products give customers the agility they need to align IT with changing business conditions, deploy scalable solutions on demand, and manage mobile access to data and services. Enterprises, service and cloud providers, and leading online companies worldwide rely on F5 to optimize their IT investments and drive business forward. For more information, go to www.f5.com.

Emirates NBD, a United Arab Emirates bank, won the Stevie® Award for Marketing Department of the Year in the marketing awards categories of The 2011 International Business Awards.  (The 2012 IBAs are now accepting entries. Get your entry kit here and submit your entries by the 11 April early-bird deadline for discounted fees.) Here we outline their innovative 360-degree marketing approach to building the leading banking brand in the UAE.

Launched in November 2009, Emirates NBD had two objectives:

• become the leading banking brand in the UAE by 2010 and,
• become a top 100 global banking brand by 2013.

With the world in the middle of a financial crisis, however, the timing was a little challenging.

Overcoming Challenges
In order to accomplish the bank’s objective of becoming a leading UAE banking brand, the Emirates NBD Group Marketing department had to build a new and powerful brand value proposition.

Based on market research of over 1,200 respondents across the Emirates, Group Marketing developed the “Enriched Banking Experience” as the reference frame for all its marketing activities. This value proposition is all about providing customers with the best possible banking experience, while at the same time engaging them in experiences beyond banking through a stronger emotional appeal.

360-Degree Marketing Approach
Led by Vikram Krishna, Head of Group Marketing at Emirates NBD, the marketing division was responsible for developing an innovative 360-degree marketing approach to implement the bank’s value proposition across all customer touch-points.

The 360-degree marketing activities included:

1. Customer Insights
Emirates NBD transitioned into an organization driven by its customers’ insights with:

• New internal publications to inform management about business/brand news, competition insights, innovations;
• Regular market research to support all major business decisions;
• A comprehensive online brand value management system.

2. Product innovations
Emirates NBD launched a number of product innovations and linked them to experiences.  For example, its DNATA and Skywards credit cards made the travel experience for their users much more rewarding, and its Gold Certificates were linked to a concert by a famous Indian singer.

3. Digital Marketing
Emirates NBD gave its website a new look and feel, with new tools and content and improved search engine optimization (SEO).  There were tangible results from these improvements:

• The bank became the second fastest-rising search term in the UAE on Google;
• The number of visitors increased from 0.4 to 1.5 million per month within 18 months;
• The newly designed website generated five times more leads.

4. Events & Sponsorships
Group Marketing carefully selected a number of events, based on the experience they provided, for Emirates NBD to sponsor. The 360-degree approach was applied by analyzing all potential customer touch points from A to Z.  Branding and interactions with the customers in different formats were based on this research.

5. Brand Activation
The ideal brand activation is where the brand becomes part of the customer experience. This was the case with Emirates NBD’s innovative branding of the Dubai Aquarium, a core attraction in Dubai Mall.

6. Internal Branding
A brand has to come to life from the inside out. A number of initiatives were started to transform all the banks 7,000 employees into brand ambassadors. One of them was an internal campaign called “I am Emirates NBD.” Six employees who best represented the bank’s core values were featured in the campaign.

7. External Communications
Group Marketing launched a major advertising campaign called “Truth and Reality.” The campaign implemented the bank’s value proposition: Truth is a fact linked to a banking experience, whereas reality is what people make of it—and their personal experience beyond banking. 

The results of this campaign were that:

• 90% of people in the bankable UAE population saw the ad
• 44% responded to the ad
• 6% became new Emirates NBD customers

Achieving Aspirations
Using the 360-degree marketing approach to implement its new brand value proposition, Emirates NBD has successfully reached its objective of becoming the No. 1 banking brand in the UAE. In the YouGov BrandIndex (a widely used tracking tool in the UAE) Emirates NBD improved its score from 17 to 26, while its competitors stayed at around 16.

According to The Banker magazine, Emirates NBD increased its brand value by US $295 million. It is now ranked in 130th position globally, and in first position in the UAE.

“We in Group Marketing are immensely proud that our efforts at building the leading banking brand in the region have succeeded in positioning Emirates NBD on a par with brands of international distinction,” said Krishna. "The past year has been a particularly successful one for Emirates NBD with many national, regional, and international awards, among which the coveted Stevie Award stands out. This award is a recognition of the effectiveness of our brand strategy and an important step forward into the international arena.”

About Vikram Krishna:
Vikram Krishna is Head of Group Marketing at Emirates NBD. He is a senior banking professional with in-depth knowledge of Retail Banking, Retail Assets, and Mortgages. Krishna has a rich and varied sales and marketing experience across financial products and brands.  Before joining Emirates NBD, Krishna was Senior Vice President Marketing-Retail Assets at HSBC India. Prior to that, Krishna held the post of Vice President, Head of Mortgages for North India at CitiFinancial. Communicate Magazine (in association with Advertising Age) recently named Krishna one of the 50 most powerful media, advertising, and marketing executives in the Middle East.Krishna has a bachelor’s degree in Mathematical Studies from Delhi University and an MBA in marketing from Bharatidasan University, Tiruchirappalli, India.

About Emirates NBD:
Emirates NBD is a leading banking Group in the region with over 133 branches and over 750 ATMs and SDMs in the UAE. Emirates NBD employs more than 7.000 employees with over 50 nationalities. The Group has operations in the UAE, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Singapore, the United Kingdom, and Jersey (Channel Islands), and representative offices in India and Iran. For more information go to www.emiratesnbd.com/en/.

We have added two new sales achievement categories to The 2012 Stevie® Awards for Sales & Customer Service to honor marketing individuals for their sales excellence. Showcase your organization's best marketing practices and submit your entries today. (Be sure to submit your entries before the January 18th deadline; request your entry kit here.)

Our new marketing awards categories are:

• Outbound Marketing Program of the Year
  Recognizing marketing programs that use advertising, promotions, public relations and sales.
• Inbound Marketing Program of the Year
  Recognizing marketing programs that rely on content generation, lead development, and prospect cultivation.

The following information should be included in your marketing award submissions:

• An essay of up to 500 words describing the nominee’s accomplishments since July 1, 2010 in the area covered by the category;
• A brief biography (up to 100 words) of the leader of the nominated team or department; and
• Links to online news stories, videos, photographs, press releases, etc. that support your nomination (optional).

All Finalists will be announced on January 25. Finalist benefits include:

• Free Networking Opportunities
  Those who attend the 6th annual sales and customer service awards banquet will have several opportunities to meet other business leaders as well as celebrate business success. 
• Opportunities to Gain New Clients
  Gold Stevie Award winners will have the opportunity to make a 30-second acceptance speech before an audience of hundreds of executives from across the globe during an awards dinner that will be broadcast and streamed worldwide over the Internet - a great opportunity to gain new clients.
• Free Publicity
  The publicity that comes with winning a Stevie Award is well-worth the low entry fees.

Starting in 2012, in celebration of the 10th anniversary of the start of the Stevie Awards movement, all Finalists will be recognized as Gold, Silver or Bronze Stevie Award winners. Winners will be announced at the 6th annual sales and customer service awards banquet on February 27th at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas.

Which of your organization's marketing programs will win a Stevie?