There won’t be a Bookmarks Awards event this year, the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) has announced. Instead, the digital publishing awards have been rescheduled for February 2015, and will be relaunched as The IAB Summit & Bookmarks Awards.
IAB SA chairman, Jarred Cinman, said the awards, which were conceived by Nikki Cockcroft during her tenures at the IAB (the DMMA), had helped to entrench digital as a recognised medium, and highlighted the work of agencies, publishers and individuals working in the digital realm. Cockcroft stepped down as Head of Bookmarks in March 2014.
“The IAB and the digital industry as a whole express our profound gratitude to Nikki for all the work, energy and passion she dedicated to these awards in the first six years”, Cinman said.
“Despite an increasingly hectic career, and starting a family, Nikki managed to deliver a better show each year with a team almost entirely made up of volunteers, despite many other similar award programmes employing numerous fulltime staff to create the same level of quality. I can only say thank you and wish her the best”, Cinman added.
The Awards, a key part of the local advertising, publishing and digital industry calendar, are into their seventh year. Last year the awards broke records again with over 600 entries across 45 categories.
The DMMA rebranded as the IAB earlier this year and became part of a global network of IABs extending to 42 countries. This has created an opportunity to evolve the Bookmarks into something larger and more in line with global IAB events, such as the successful IAB Mixx events held in many countries.
The IAB SA will run a Mixx event in February 2015 culminating in a re-imagined Bookmarks Awards and celebration topping off the conference.
“Situating the Bookmarks early in the new year gives us time to realise this ambitious new vision as well as allow the awards to own a part of calendar that isn’t already busy with other industry events,” Cinman said.
Full details of the event will be released as they are finalised including location, speakers, categories and judges. Winners at IAB Bookmarks will be automatically entered in the international IAB Mixx Awards held in September each year in New York, USA.
