Last night saw the ninth PM Society Digital Awards take place at The Brewery in London. 450 guests sat down to dinner before the winners were announced by the voice of the Lotto Alan Dedicoat and comic host Ramesh Ranganathan.
There was an even spread of winners across the categories, echoing last year’s trend with no one agency or company sweeping up more than 2 Golds. This year the evening ended with the announcement of the first Pharma Digital Partner award that was won by Norgine’s Kym Jacks Bryant, who beat finalists Mary Andrews from GSK and Kasper Kofod from Novo Nordisk. Best Digital Project or Account Manager this year was won by Four Health’s Sam Bradford Smith and the Best Agency Digital Team was from Insypher.
This year 3 agencies stood out at the top of the field; Bedrock won 2 Golds, in Congress, Meetings & Events and Corporate Communications; DDB Remedy took home two Golds in Film and Innovation-Creativity categories and Insypher Ltd received two top awards; Gold in the Market Access category and Winner of Best Agency Digital Team.
VCCP took away 4 awards in total – a Gold, 2 Silvers and a Bronze, while Four Health took three, including a Gold, a Highly Commended and a Bronze. Other Gold winners included Big Pink, emotive., Hamell, Pegasus and The Purple Agency. 90TEN also took Gold in the Patient Programmes category – a category they also won last year.
Amongst the pharma companies and healthcare organisations, Gilead was the only company to take two Gold Awards, one for their innovative HIV patient programme and the other for the hard hitting film – Are you Chris? While ViiV Healthcare, Teva and Celgene all took a Gold and a Silver. Other Gold winners included Network Rail with the Samaritans and British Transport Police for their thought-provoking campaign to reduce suicide attempts within the transport system. Allergan, Glenmark, Grunenthal, Merck Serono, MSD and Novartis and all won Gold as well.
Full list of category Gold winners
Promotional campaigns – Hamell Ltd – Maloff Protect Marketing Campaign
HCP education & support – emotive. – ART Perspectives
Patient programmes – 90TEN – My journey: Flight HIV101
Market access – Insypher Ltd – Mavenclad budget impact model
Congress/Meetings – Bedrock – Novartis ESC Congress Activities
Integrated channel campaign – Pegasus – Small Talk Saves Lives
Corporate communications – Bedrock – This is Axiom
Internal communications – The Purple Agency – EMEAC congress App
Film – DDB Remedy – Are you Chris?
Animation – VCCP Health – Capaxone: World at their feet
Innovation: New Technology – Big Pink – HCP education side effects App
Innovation: Creativity – DDB Remedy – IFOS Hologram
Digital Account Manager – Sam Bradford Smith (Four Health Media)
Digital Team – Insypher Ltd
Pharma Digital Partner – Kym Jacks Bryant (Norgine)
There were 17 categories at this year’s awards, the only new award being the addition of the Pharma Digital Partner Award. 41 judges in total examined the entries, first online and then at an exciting second round involving face-to-face presentations. The judges were predominantly from industry, with expertise in marketing and digital as well as some medics and additional judges from the NHS and agencies.
Awards Chair Rachel Farrow said – “As we saw in 2017, there has been a wide spread of Gold awards across the agencies showing that there are numerous highly talented agencies producing outstanding digital work. Some are specialist digital agencies, others identify themselves as healthcare communications, medical education, creative, patient focussed agencies, PR or market access agencies. What they have in common is that they can all deliver fantastic digital work and these awards allow that work to be highlighted. I’m really pleased we’ve been able to add in the Pharma Digital Partner award this year as it’s great to have a chance to highlight the fantastic working relationships and partnerships between clients and their digital agencies.”
