B2B Marketing Awards 2012 - help us choose the categories

Looks like you've got all bases covered! One thing that bugs me about many awards is the way the same entry is often entered into multiple categories, squeezing out those with smaller award entry budgets, and limiting the showcasing of a wider range of work. I am all in favour of the "best" work getting rightly recognised, but surely a single entry should only be eligible for one category?? Anyone else feel the same way?

I'd like to see a return of the 'best search marketing' categories..as specialists are left a bit out in the cold! It would make sense to follow the same theme as the dedicated PR categories, so please can we have a 'Best search marketing campaign' and 'Best search marketing agency'?

Best animation? And generally more categories under website work - what is "best website"? How does that get judged? Perhaps more categories like, best use of technology on a website. And best website design. Best use of video/animation on a website. etc...

Thought leadership is a good call - although this maybe overlaps with 'best use of content'. Think you've got most bases covered there Joel.

I'd love to see a 'Best bright new thing' award, for marketers in the industry starting up (under 25's only) as I think we really need to encourage and reward new blood in our industry. Also keen to have a 'Best use of innovation' award on the cards. It frustrates me when B2B is perceived as lagging behind our B2C peers iin innovation when there's so much exciting stuff we're out there doing day to day. I think this should be recognised, and an award like this will go a long way to doing so.

would love to see: Best New Innovation in B2B Marketing Best New custom built Marketing Technology Best Internal B2B Marketing Programme

Seeing as you have some channel specific categories, what about: - Best rebrand for a B2B brand - Best employee engagement strategy/campaign - Best employee retention strategy/campaign

It would be good to see some categories that begin to cover the area of businesses who are operating more ethically or doing things more efficiently. It's clear that organisations are facing considerable challenges to do things differently and are rethinking their brands and communications accordingly. How about some categories like: ‘Best behaviour change programme’ ‘Best corporate cause-related campaign’ ‘Best internal sustainability campaign’ ‘Best business/brand efficiency initiative’ 'Best corporate well-being campaign’ ‘Best internal community engagement campaign’ 'Best communication of organisational change'

This is a pretty comprehensive list, but the awards would be substantially strengthened if the rules and criteria placed more emphasis on the complete body of marketing rather than a current focus on communications. For example, the Integrated category would be stronger if it looked for alignment across the 7Ps rather than just a clever use of complementary promotional tools. Similarly, the B2B community would learn more from a Product Launch award that focussed as much on the product business case as it did on the comms rollout. Recent commentary suggests that Marketing has never been more isolated in some organisations and these Awards could be used as a platform for client-side marketers to showcase the best in whole-company marketing and sales alignment, rather than emulating the standard marketing awards focus on tactics and creative. Get the clients involved, shape the categories so they focus on Marketing and not just promotions and then challenge the community to share the great work that is being done. Of all of the 2011 awards, Lafarge was the one entry that stood out for me in bringing alignment across the business to drive real market gains from a clear customer insight. I hope to see more of that in 2012.

We also thought internal communications would be a good category. The other potential one is exhibition stands (or perhaps exhibitions activity in the broader sense)?

Many thanks for all the feedback here - I'm currently looking to finalise the categories list for this year, but in terms of feedback to the comments made: * Only allowing one entry per category. I think the key objective of the awards is to promote the best of the best, rather than simply creating more winners. So if something is good in more than one category, it should be allowed to win in more than one. Also, entrants can't necessarily predict where their campaign may succeed, therefore limiting the opportunities might lead to an excellent campaign not being recognised. * Best search marketing category. This is a reasonable request, however, we had such a category from 2006-10 and entries were low, both in numbers and quality. Hence we merged it with the 'email' category to create the best digital campaign category. * Best website... is certainly a broad category, but details of how it is judged are in the Guidelines for submissions. Best use of animation or technology would be far too niche to gain a meaningful response. * Best bright new thing... a great idea... however, again we ran this category for three years earlier in the life of the awards and discontinued it due to lack of interest. We're currently seeking to find the top 20 next gen B2B marketers, and have had to push really hard to get a result. I would love to resurrect this category in future. * Best innovation: very hard to quantify. It also puts a lot of pressure on the entrant as innovation is subjective across different categories. Best internal campaign: we have this already. * Best rebrand would fall under best brand campaign. Best employee engagement/retention would fall under internal campaign. However, this is good food for thought for the describing copy for this category. * Best organisational change... etc. would fall under best internal campaign. Again, thanks, great food for thought and notes on campaign descriptions. * Focusing more on strategy. A valid point, Graham, but on the flipside it's vital to keep the submission succinct. There is a section on the business, objectives and strategy, and it is up to entrants to ensure the relevant information is included here. Also, the more strategic information required, the more difficult it is for a submission to be signed off. We also have a category on customer insight, which is designed to tease out more strategic thinking... this could be pushed further in this direction. Thanks again for your comments. This kind of feedback is invaluable in terms of ensuring that these awards are as reflective as possible.

I don't know if I'm too late for this, but as the head of a specialist copywriting agency working with end-clients and marketing agencies in the B2B tech space, I find it a bit frustrating that there's no suitable category for us to enter. Other specialist marketing services providers: researchers, video producers, telemarketers, localisation experts, etc. must feel the same. So maybe a catch-all category for Best B2B Marketing Services Supplier?