Marketing Research Awards: Rewards of research

The awards ceremony takes place on Monday 4 July at the Riverbank Park Plaza, London.

The 15 award categories ensure that all industry sectors and research strategies are given recognition, rewarding the best methodology in each category, based on a number of key criteria. These are: the challenge of the research and its objectives, the implementation of the project itself, and evaluation and results.

Supported by the British Market Research Association (BMRA) and The Marketing Society, and sponsored by Firefish, Maritz and TNS, the awards are open to agencies, consultancies and clients' in-house departments of any size that initiate, plan, implement and evaluate research activities.

The event's top award, the Marketing Award for Outstanding Research, will be a closely fought contest. Last year's winner of this award was the Home Office. It hired Ogilvy & Mather to research the best way to make teenagers aware of the threat of paedophiles in internet chat rooms and adjust their behaviour.

The aim of the research was to gain an understanding of the attitudes of 14- to 16-year-olds toward the internet, and chat rooms in particular, and to gauge their awareness of paedophiles. It also aimed to discover the precautions being taken by parents and children to tackle the problem and what needed to be said to encourage 'safe surfing'. As a result of action taken following the research, the proportion of children willing to give out personal details online fell from 40% at the start of 2002 to 27% in 2003.

Other winners last year included the RAC, as it battled the threat of rivals by seeking to establish a point of difference; Comet, which evaluated a format redesign for destination stores; and Sony Ericsson, which ran a consumer perception study to inform target-setting.

All last year's winners demonstrated positive results for their brands as a result of the research undertaken, both in regard to the companies' present health and their future strategic direction. This year's nominees have had a similarly successful impact on their brands.

The judging panel, drawn from senior agency and client levels, consisted of: Phyllis Macfarlane, NOP World; Brian Gosschalk, MORI; Mark Pearson, Egg; Tara O'Hara, egg; Jennie Beck, TNS; Jem Fawcus, Firefish; Clare Bruce, Nunwood Consulting; Frances Hoskin, Capital One; John Weeks, Mintel; David Jamieson, Maritz; Richard Silman, Ipsos UK, Rachel Baynes, Abbey; Crispin Beale, Post Office; and Adele Gritten, Quaestor Research.

- Tickets are priced £155 each plus VAT. To book an individual place, contact Zoe Bedford on 020 8267 4042 or email zoe.bedford@haynet.com for more details.

DATA FILE - MARKETING RESEARCH AWARDS SHORTLIST

CLIENT PROJECT NAME

Abbey for Intermediaries Scottish Provident Health Lab

Age Concern Building Metrics on Age and Discrimination

Allied Domecq Courvoisier - Earning Respect

Barclays Barclays MCMP Study

Barclays Choices

Boots Boots Christmas

BT Consumer Advertising Tracker

BT Retail Consumer

Products Strategies for Growth

Buena Vista Home

Entertainment Lion King 3, Ice

Carat Clutter

Cheltenham & Gloucester IFA Research

Clerical Medical &

Intrepid Consultants Intermediary Relationship Satisfaction

CLS Bank Customer Satisfaction Project

F2C Asset Management Designer Positioning of a Child Trust Fund

GlaxoSmithKline Sleepless in South London

HBOS Ethnographic Attitudinal Segmentation

Hewlett-Packard Promotional Evaluation - Christmas 2003

Marks & Spencer Marks & Spencer Cheese Category Review

Manchester City FC The True Impact of Football Sponsorship

Client Project name

Microsoft Digital Lifestyle Index Segmentation

Nestle Zippy

News International Market Research Quantifies Return to DM

Northcliffe Newspaper

Group Northcliffe Readership 2002-2004

Scottish Tourist Board Scotland: Welcome to our Life

O2 The O2 3G Community

Parador Properties The UK Market for Overseas Properties

Post Office +1 Service

RAC Growing Local Business

Royal Mail Study of the Effects of Direct Mail

Scottish Blood Bloody Advertising

Shell Shell Europe Oil Products

Sony Professional

Solutions Manager IP Monitoring Research

South West Trains Mind the Gap

The Statistics Commission Official Statistics: Perception and Trust

Total UK Total Impression Mystery Shopping

Wanadoo Reconnect 2

Yahoo! Yahoo! Messenger - SMS on Steroids

Yahoo! Europe Yahoo! Eurobloggers