MRM scoops two gongs for running first virtual awards ceremony in financial services

MRM has won a brace of digital marketing gongs after inventing and running the first virtual awards ceremony in financial services.
The financial services marketing consultancy made Twitter history by hosting the “Platform Pricing Awards” on behalf of its client the lang cat consultancy, which was promoting a detailed guide to fees and charges in levied by providers.
Now the initiative has been formally recognised, picking up the ‘Best Social Media Campaign’ prize as well as a ‘highly commended’ gong in the ‘innovative event’ category, at the prestigious Investment Marketing & Innovation Awards hosted today by Investment Week.
Michael Taggart, head of digital at MRM, said: “We’re a small but perfectly formed team buzzing with ideas about how to shake up financial services with social technologies. There are some digital geniuses emerging in our industry so to be recognised in these awards is special.”
During the “Platform Pricing Awards”, the best and brightest in the wrap and investment platform industries were invited to ‘attend’ Twitter over thepace of a single hour as a clutch of awards were ‘handed out’.
Many joined the fun, joking with each other that they were at a real event, while some posted pictures of cocktails they were supposedly quaffing and others bantered about who was sat in whose seat. MRM fuelled the fun by posting a mocked-up Vine video on Twitter of ‘chief judge’ the lang cat’s Mark Polson, arriving at the awards in a black cab.
The event was a huge success, capturing the attention of hundreds of the lang cat’s target audience during the hour. There was a 680% increase in web traffic per hour during the hour of the event, 200+ mentions of the lang cat consultancy on Twitter and, most importantly, 12 guides were bought in that hour and many more bought as a result of the publicity.
We followed up by posting a Storify of the event and released this infographic.