Pride and Pixels

In its third year of existence, the annual Bookmarks Awards dispenses praise and Pixels to the best of the online industry, from publishing websites to mobile to multimedia to agency ad campaigns. Pixels are the small trophy cubes that winners receive, which combine a clever symbolism with a presumably cheap-to-produce design. Square and boring they may be, but as with actual pixels, the little awards are fast becoming the raw material with which the online industry builds success.

At this year’s Bookmarks, held at Brio in Cape Town on November 18, Mail & Guardian received two awards in the category for microsites. The M&G‘s special Soccer World Cup site won a silver, and our affectionate tribute to Nelson Mandela, the M&G Madiba site, packed full of 25 years’ worth of coverage from the M&G newspaper, was awarded first place and a gold. Judges decided not to award a bronze, which effectively gave the M&G a clean sweep of the category. There were only five (subsequently six – more on that later) publishing gold awards in total given on the night, so the M&G is particularly proud of this commendation.

Big winner on the night was 24.com, the giant tentacular digital arm of the Naspers empire, whose dominant News24 site won the general publishing category, but was inexplicably only deemed worthy of a silver award. This in a category, best publishing site, where all four awards made were to 24.com sites. Fin24.com and Sport24 received bronze awards, and Food24 and News24 both received silvers. Happily, or perhaps unhappily (you can sometimes measure the PR success of an awards ceremony by the amount of disgruntlement echoed afterward) the scandal of the night has been corrected — apparently, an error crept into the process, and News24 has now been awarded the gold it deserved.

Chairperson Nikki Cockcroft said on Monday that it had been an “admin error” when compiling the lists.

“We looked at the list so many times, gold must have started looking silver. In general, everything went amazingly, but you can’t please everyone. We give awards judged on international standards, so we stand by the number of awards we gave.”

The M&G‘s favourite small news site, the incomparable Daily Maverick, was awarded the editorial team award in the individual and team publishing awards. Also honoured in this section was Habari Media as digital advertising sales team, and Fin24‘s David McKay as editorial individual of the year. Habari’s Adrian Hewlett also got a well-deserved award for greatest individual contribution to digital media and marketing.

Other winners in the publishing category included a silver for Woolworths’ Taste magazine for best website launch, with new tech site Memeburn taking the runner-up bronze. Best mixed-media gold went to DSTV’s hugely successful Big Brother Africa All Stars. William Saunderson-Meyer’s blog on the M&G‘s Thought Leader blogging platform took first prize and a silver in the blogs category.

In the agency category, there was some mirth at how Gloo interactive’s bronze award for the Woolworths “Love birds” social media campaign was complimented by a best viral campaign silver for Yuppiechef for “Woolies Lovebirds Ransom”. The latter’s success essentially rested on taking advantage of Woolworths’ failure to publicise the correct URL for their campaign, a saga documented on the M&G.

In the final analysis, the Bookmarks Awards must be considered a success, albeit a qualified one. The organisers have done incredible work to build the competition’s status over the very short three-year period of its existence. A further-simplified entry process would be good, and more has to be done to get an even larger spread of entries. And it would be nice to not have the awards ceremony in an oven next time, at the same time as cruelly making the dress code smart glam. But on the whole, Bookmarks chairperson Nikki Cockcroft and the committee can give themselves credit for a difficult job extremely well done.