Reflecting on Award Success

Now the hangover has cleared and the dust has settled on the celebration of winning a Marketing Week Masters with Xero it feels like a suitable time to write a few words.

Personally, Dan and I always had a love/hate relationship with awards. Great for the ego but it got in the way of doing our day job (which is what we are really paid to do).

We were pulled up on this attitude by a wise, long-term client of ours who pointed out that his team gained great satisfaction from award success and it gave us, the agency, a trusted stamp of approval too...”it confirms to everyone you are the right partner for us”

From that moment a light bulb flickered in our far too cynical minds and we started to enter awards.

We have never favoured a bombardment approach preferring quality over quantity and being selective so our team are not overstretched and they do not feel like they are entering for the sake of entering.

This year we have won at Thinkbox (People’s Energy) and the OOH Media Awards (Material Focus) but I would say our most important award win since creating d19 has been at the recent Marketing Week Masters (B2B category).

We were up against some heavy hitters in the advertising world, but the true highlight was showing how we helped drive brand awareness which in turn drove incremental revenue for Xero.

This was best summarised by Marketing Week themselves:

The impressive strategy helped deliver increased brand awareness, image, and consideration, beating both the market leaders in its penetration growth. It was seen by 15% of business owners, a growth of 18%, and generated £2.41 in incremental revenue for every £1 invested. That this was all achieved without any meaningful change to the product or pricing makes Xero the deserving winner of the 2021 Marketing Week Masters.

Dave Barnett, Co-founder / MD, december19