Posts Tagged Awards
2010 A4U Awards Open For Nominations Plus IGB Affiliates & Bingo Awards
Posted by Jason Dale in Affiliate Marketing on February 2, 2010
Award season is well and truly upon us. The Oscar nominations are due, some bingo sites have done some back scratching, the IGB Affiliate Awards have passed and nominations are now open for the 2010 A4U Awards. This means it’s time for the great and the good in AM to nominate their favourite Publisher, Affiliate Marketing Blog of 2010, Account Manager at a Network, Affiliate Manager, and Affiliate Network.
Awards are funny things and are often the focus of some heated debate. Take the big bingo portals for instance. Every year they compete to offer bingo merchants an award for best site or newcomer. The merchants lap this up and encourage their users to vote and/or plaster links back to the portals on their site and newsletter with absolutely no regard for their other affiliates. Do I want to send my users to a site that has “Go to XYZBingo and vote for us” on it?
No I don’t! It’s understandable why it’s done, although imo it’s the bingo portal getting the most benefit with extra traffic and backlinks – but I guess that’s my cynicism coming through there. It’s a tough situation to work round with the only solutions being that bingo sites don’t add links or every affiliate runs an award set up each year and everyone gets treated a bit more fairly.
Staying with gaming, last week was the IGB Affiliate Awards. Loquax was nominated as best bingo affiliate, but had little chance of winning (or even getting to the final shortlist), but we were in there somewhere. The good news was that the awards were streamed live, which was an interesting experience.
The presenters weren’t exactly Ricky Gervais at The Golden Globes (or even Jason Manford at A4UAwards 2009), more Samantha Fox and Mick Fleetwood at The Brits after a few drinks. Hopefully they came across better ‘live’. Still the dance group interlude was good and perhaps streaming is something A4U can look into for 2010?
One more point about IGB! I guess it’s not good form to question winners, but for the life of me I cannot understand how Ladbrokes took the bingo affiliate awards. There must be a The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe type door on their affiliate system that takes people through to Narnia that I’m missing as what I see isn’t that impressive on numerous levels. Still, well done to all winners there – opinion and debate are always a close second aren’t they?
So awards and controversy go hand in hand, and that takes us back to this year’s A4U Awards. Who will win? Who won’t win? And how much blog mileage can we get out of questioning the judging, the voting, the vote for mes and the who I voted fors! To get the ball rolling head on over to the 2010 A4U Awards and make your nominations.
The 4th Annual a4uAwards will be held at the Grosvenor House Hotel, Park Lane, Mayfair on the 9th June 2010.
Nominate Now for the 2010 A4UAwards
The Affiliate Awards That Got Turned Down
Posted by Jason Dale in Affiliate Marketing on December 3, 2009
The A4UAwards are back for another posh black tie event in 2010. They’ll be taking place at The Grosvenor House Hotel in London on June 9th and there’s a few changes in award categories from 2009. The mix of awards seems to be well thought out, but it’s a shame that some of these affiliate awards won’t be on offer….
The Affiliate Guru Award
This could could to the person who’s knowledge of affiliate marketing is so immense they’ve no time to actually do anything other than be a guru and tell other people how to do AM or online marketing. To qualify the nominees must have loads of followers, be well known and demonstrate what it is they actually do or have done – ah, so that’s why this award won’t work then!
The Ethical Affiliate Award
We should be celebrating those affiliates who are whiter than Snow White, Mr White from Reservoir Dogs and Gandalf the White at a Winter Wonderland Party at White City all being serenaded with White Wedding by Billy Idol. They must be clean, transparent and can sit up and boldly say “we’ve done nothing wrong”. Any suggestions for this one?
Pushing The Boundaries Affiliate Award
This could go to the affiliate who’s looked (or not looked) at the terms and conditions of various affiliate programs or networks and then bent them in to a boat like shape so that they can sale as close to the wind as is possible. Some in AM insist affiliates should stop moaning and start innovating… so perhaps it time to reward those who are really pushing the boundaries and challenging the very foundations of the marketing channel?
The Brand Bidder Award
What better way to expose the best in brand bidding than with an award? Of course those affiliates who are allowed to brand bid wouldn’t be able to qualify for the award. On awards night when the nominees and winners announced everyone would be made aware of who the naughty brand bidders are! Hooray!
The Doctor Who Network Regeneration Award
David Tennant’s Doctor is about to regenerate into Matt Smith’s version and it could either be brilliant or a pigs ear… hence the title of this award. It could be awarded to the network who have gone from pants to brilliant in the last 12 months, or as in the case of (put in your own suggestion) has turned into such a Turkey they’re actually worrying about ending up on the dinner table on the 25th December.
The Champions League Agency Award
Once upon a time to qualify for the Champions League you needed to be the Champions of the First Division or Premiership. Now you can win the overall title by finishing fourth. As Existem AM will most likely win “Best Agency” this award is an opportunity for other agencies to get their hands on something. Whilst essentially they’ll be second, they can still claim to be first.
The Affiliate Duck/Latin Brand Name Award
Why this never made the cut I’ve no idea. Seems a perfectly reasonable idea!!
Of course all the above are purely tongue in cheek and any resemblance to anyone living or dead is purely coincidental.
Fortunately for the affiliate industry there’s a nice bundle of sensible awards on offer including Innovation Awards, Best 3rd Party Affiliate Application (ECU please), Best Advertiser Incentive, Best New Entrant in Affiliate Marketing, Best Paid Search Partnership and Best Lead Generation Campaign.
Find out more and submit your entry at A4UAwards!
