aia and ThirtyThree carve up CIPD Awards

Recruitment ad agencies aia and ThirtyThree dominated proceedings at the 2006 CIPD Recruitment Marketing Awards, held at the Honourable Artillery Company Gardens on the evening of Monday 26th June. Between them, their work accounted for exactly half of all the category nominations, and they ended up carrying off more than two-thirds of the available awards.

Both agencies triumphed in six categories, with aia also claiming the Guardian-sponsored Grand Prix on behalf of their client Gap. It’s the second successive year that aia and ThirtyThree have come out on top.

aia’s successes came in the general, graduate, art direction, writing, recruitment literature and interactive categories, on behalf of its clients Gap, Qinetiq and the Children’s Society. Their grand total of seven awards represented yet another impressive haul, once again confirming aia’s status as the agency that seems to have mastered the art of producing award-winners better than anyone else.

Running them close on the night, ThirtyThree’s wins came in the managerial, professional, specialist skills, website, campaign and employer branding categories, on behalf of four clients: Hutchison 3G, Codemasters, the Audit Commission and Barclays.

The remaining five awards were shared between four agencies. Lighthouse deserve special mention for picking up a brace – the first major awards in their history, both for their client AXA PPP – in the outdoor and innovation categories. and, Barkers and Bernard Hodes each won a single award, in the diversity, recruitment effectiveness and internal marketing categories respectively.

The event itself, adroitly hosted by Phill Jupitus, was a great success. As ever, there were a few murmurs about the quality of judging – mostly relating to the fact that an ad for temporary Christmas retail staff featuring a snowflake should have won three awards, including the Grand Prix.

Of course, reactions to awards are always highly subjective, particularly when your team isn’t one of the winners. There can be no doubt, however, that the overall quality of submissions once again achieved remarkable standards of original thinking and technical excellence. You can make up your own mind by checking out all the winners and category finalists in this year’s Guide to Recruitment Marketing – a co-production between Ri5 and People Management, published with latest issue of the magazine.

No doubt this and other issues will form part of the annual ‘wash-up’ that will make the 2007 Awards even more successful!