The Heavy Chef Project

I went to The Bookmarks 2008 Digital Awards Ceremony last night and I’m stoked - what an awesome initiative by the Online Publishers Association (OPA).

Ok, yes, the evening didn’t go smoothly logistics-wise and some of the people were caught of guard by the categories that actually didn’t produce any winners (think there were 5 or 6 of them ??).

BUT, that being said, I had an awesome evening and, more importantly, I’m glad the OPA has put a stake in the ground with The Bookmarks initiative. They’ve taken the responsibility and now has put out a challenge to all web creatives and strategists - UP your game, UP your creative, UP your strategies. Mediocrity will not be awarded, only excellence on par with International standards. This I like! This is why the very first Bookmarks awards were a success!

Ok, but here are a couple of highlights for me about the evening:

• I didn’t realize it was a cocktail-dress evening, so me, with my shorts and vellies didn’t really fit in that well - ok, that was a joke, but still I was a bit under-dressed. Luckily there were a good number of creatives in the room - they tend to be a bit more lenient with these type of things ;)
• Adrian Hewlett & Nikki Cockroft were very professional as heads of the OPA and paid tribute to a real pioneer in the industry, JP Farinha
• Martin Jonas was MC - my stomach muscles was aching of laughter. The dude’s got talent.
• Mr. Jonas did give me stick though for being the first ‘dutchman’ to pronounce our Presidents name properly… ‘Jacob’… sorry (;))…’Kgalema Mothlanthe’
• Had a very cool chat with Colin Daniels Publisher from Times Online - shouting the praises of President-elect Obama
• Also had fantastic conversations with Jeremy ‘All Smiles’ Visser from IAS, John ‘The Legend’ Dobson MD of Primedia Online and incumbent UCT 1st rugby team coach, Tank ‘The Monster’ Lanning from 24.com and Earl Rose fanatic (sorry Tank!) and Nikki ‘Ms. Legs Benoni’ Cockroft CEO of Primedia Online & Head of Marketing at OPA
• Food, food, food and more food was offered every 2 seconds! Eish, those waiters carrying platters must’ve been finished at the end of the evening
• Then what would an awards ceremony be without a goodies-bag with T-shirt, showreel CD, sponsors brochures and lanyard!

That being said, on a more serious note, The Bookmarks are going to go from strength to strength, so I’d love to make a couple of observations maybe to consider for future awards:

• There was a big focus on creativity but a lack of focus on the performance and/or strategic direction of campaigns
• More detail on the thinking behind campaigns that were category winners
• Was this the “Digital Awards” or “Digital Advertising Awards”? Which-ever positioning it is, these are 2 fundamentally different concepts and ties directly into the categories/awards on offer.
• I’d love to see the awards including a social media/interactive marketing category as well
• Possible focus on entrepreneurial ventures as well? Not only campaigns, but web businesses that are leading the way.

All in all, this was a great evening. Well done to the OPA!

How do they say - “This is a start of beautiful relationship…”