First up was the B2B Marketing Awards, held on the 25th November at the Honourable Artillery Company in London and hosted by piano-playing funnyman, Tim Minchin. A glittering gala dinner ceremony saw 700 attendees celebrate the awards which are designed to recognise excellence in the long-ignored field of business-to-business marketing.
Sodexo Prestige were recognised in the ‘Best use of an Email Campaign’ category for The Open Championship Challenge, devised by Cyance. Selling corporate hospitality in current economic conditions was a challenge few companies would have relished and achieving success with email acquisition is harder work than ever.
Messages were created to each of the markets whether it was encouraging people in Scotland to support their ‘Local Event’ or to local businesses who were encouraged to attend a ‘traditional Scottish event’ or to the North West of England who were ‘within easy reach of St Andrews’. Additionally, the financial benefits to businesses of entertaining at such events were sent to MD’s and FD’S of companies whereas those being sent to non-budgetary holding titles carried a more personal message.
As a result of the campaign the online traffic increased by 250% with over 500 leads resulting from the campaign with many national companies looking to book Open hospitality next year.
The Eventia Awards followed a day later in London’s Park Lane Hilton where 800 guests were hosted by BBC Breakfast presenters’ Bill Turnbull and Sian Williams. The entertainment came from X-Factor finalist, Paije Richardson, who wowed guests as they partied into the early hours of Saturday morning.
Sodexo Prestige won the ‘Best Hospitality Event’ category, overcoming prestigious sporting venues such as the O2 in London and Stoke Park’s Country Club and Resort. Since winning the six-year contract to provide full catering services at The Open Championship in February 2008, Sodexo Prestige have made considerable investments into creating a new standard of sporting hospitality. The 150th anniversary of The Open Championship at St Andrews saw 78 chefs, 20 managers and up to 120 on-site staff run nine styles of catering; assisted service, coffee bar, bars, three table service restaurants, patrons, hospitality and media catering. A strong emphasis on ‘going local’ was placed across all areas of hospitality with some 70% of staff being recruited from the local area whilst 85% of all food was sourced in Scotland.
Notable additions to the success at St Andrews were designer marquees, top class hostesses, a business centre, private gardens on site and the presence of Open Hospitality Ambassador Tony Jacklin who chatted with guests in the Clubhouse hospitality facility. Sodexo Prestige also partnered CityJet to make the customer journey as smooth as possible and launched flight/transfers inclusive packages for City time-strapped executives.
Senior Sales Manager at Sodexo Prestige, David Maccallum, collected the award on behalf of The Open Championship hospitality team and said:
“An incredible amount of work went into providing such a broad and high quality hospitality service at The Open Championship at St Andrews and this Eventia Award is testimony of that. I accept this on behalf of the whole hospitality team at St Andrews and we look forward to welcoming you all to Kent for The Open Championship at Royal St George’s next year”.
A fine evening for Sodexo Prestige was rounded off with additional Eventia Awards in both the Event Hotel/Venue (capacity 251-750) and the Event Hotel/Venue (capacity 250 or less) categories. The Great North Museum (capacity 251-750) picked up a Gold Award while the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (capacity 250 or less) was awarded Silver.
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