Graphico, the Newbury-based digital media company and Wokingham’s Creative Direction, the design and marketing consultancy, both won top awards at the British Interactive Media Association (BIMA) Award ceremony at a spectacular evening held at the Grosvenor House in London last Thursday night.

BIMA is the UK, and increasingly international, pinnacle of excellence in new media or on-line electronic marketing and communications.

The two Thames Valley marketing suppliers shared their different expertise through their Partnership in DirectionGroup- an alliance of independent marketing service suppliers- to take top prize for Best Use of CD ROM/DVD/Kiosk with a project on behalf of Microsoft’s Encarta 2003 Encyclopaedia CD and Kellogg’s.

The project entailed a series of four interactive CDs given free in millions of Kellogg’s packets. Each CD presented a refreshing, fun view of information on a key school subject: Geography, History, Sport and Science, which aimed to “Wake up minds” of kids (and a few parents) at the breakfast table.

Clearly it worked for all concerned as purchases of Encarta 2003 boomed, and Kellogg’s Corn Flakes sales increased significantly during the promotion. The promotion worked so well Microsoft is now running it worldwide.

Graphico also won the Best on-line game Award for J2O, the fruit drink manufacturer, with an unusual ‘toilet training’ game (don’t ask!) and also won two further Commendations for the Best Integrated Campaign and Entertainment & Media Owners. “We entered four categories and won four awards, two being firsts…I am simply ecstatic, this shows that we have the talent to compete with the world’s best” said Mark Bennett, MD of Graphico after receiving his fourth BIMA honour.

Richard Stephens MD of Creative Direction and Marketing Director of DirectionGroup, was at the evening and also clearly delighted “this endorses two DirectionGroup Partner companies and highlights to all the massive benefits in integrated marketing solutions for clients - Microsoft marketers trusted us both to deliver the right strategy and the best technology to make the project work…we appreciated that and delivered, BIMA has now added their own, unique approval!”

For further information, please contact:
Richard Stephens
DirectionGroup
Tel: 0118 989 8104
Mob: 07836 587096
Email: richards@directiongroup.co.uk
www.directiongroup.co.uk