EIBTM’s annual Meetings and Incentive Industry Awards were presented on 2 December. The Awards, an integral element of EIBTM and now in their 9th year, encourage creativity and reward excellence in the meetings and incentive industry. They offer recognition for the many talented event creators and marketers for their highly imaginative skills and professional execution, ideas and services.

The judging panel, chaired by Jeremy Garbett, formerly MD of JMW and now founder of a new agency Deeper Blue, were looking for truly outstanding events and campaigns that were highly imaginative in concept and execution. Creativity, innovation, impact, production, expertise, interactivity, sustainability and evaluation were all key factors in the judges’ final decisions.

Winners and runners up
1st Category: Best Special Event
Winner: Hagen Invent GmbH & Co. KG for Life is running! – HDI-Gerling Leben
Highly commended: Insgluck Gesellschaft Fur Markeninszenierung mbH for International Opening Ceremony CeBIT 2009

2nd Category: Best Conference with more than 250 attendees
Winner: Face to Face GmbH with Cast Off! Takeda Pharma
Highly commended: Torino Convention Bureau for MPI’s European Meetings and Events Conference, Torino 2009

3rd Category: Best Conference with less than 250 attendees
Winner: Face to Face GmbH for We Write History (Bayer Health Care)
Highly commended: The Companies GmbH for Funds Go 3D – Real I.S Annual Customer Meeting

4th Category: Best Incentive Programme
Winner: Grupo Pacifico for a cinematic event for Chiesi Espana
Highly commended: EVT Marketing Group for ‘Hot Sales, Cools Rewards’

5th Category: Best Destination Marketing Campaign
Winner: Sarawak Convention Bureau for ‘Awaken the Warrior Within’
Highly commended: Tourism Australia

6th Category: Sustainable Initiative of the Year
Winner: World Events for World Events Company Conference 2009
Highly commended: Adelaide Convention Centre

7th Category: Best Product Launch
Winner: Vok Dams Gruppe for Skoda World Dealer Conference
Highly commended: Global Events for Lipton Tea

Commenting on the Awards, chair of judges Jeremy Garbett said: “We have been delighted this year by the highly innovative concepts of the events submitted. We have been particularly impressed with the quality of entries received in our new Award for Sustainable Initiative of the Year. It is clear that the industry, particularly from the entries received from Australia, is taking sustainable issues to heart and putting words into actions.”