May 18 2012

The answer is actually quite simple. According to the “Le jeu sérieux en Belgique francophone” annual conference (French for “the serious game in French-speaking Belgium”), the development of games has become more and more common in “serious” contexts, such as public-awareness campaigns, marketing a new product or service, or even for educational purposes. Every year, during the “Serious Game” event (which took place last week), prizes and awards are granted for outstanding so-called “serious” games.

The new game developed by Emakina for Electrabel has just been recognised as such, winning the Bell.Now award for the best “adver-game”. Participants of the “Serious Game” conference were asked to rank the best examples of the past year.   The Electrabel “Switch Off/ Smart Energy Game” was thus voted as the best case for marketing purposes. As suggested by the category name, the purpose of the game, developed entirely in-house by Emakina, was to promote the new Electrabel application which is part of the company’s wide-scale campaign.

The organisers might think it’s very “serious”. We still think it’s fun…!

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May 14 2012

But in order for Brice to win the ‘Wow Effect’ award he still needs your vote…

What is that all about? Well, the Belgian Direct Marketing Association (BDMA) runs a competition for selecting the person who had the greatest contribution to the direct marketing sector. One of the four candidates for this year’s award is Emakina’s Chief Visionary Officer, Brice Le Blévennec.

That’s all you need to know. Now go execute your democratic right and vote (for Brice)!

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Apr 3 2012

As every year, business magazine Trends-Tendances has ranked the fastest growing companies across the Belgian market. The competition is open for companies active for at least five years, presenting a positive cash-flow, and which have created at least 20 jobs since their creation.

Out of a database of the top 100,000 companies, Trends-Tendances selects the best cases in three different size categories: small, medium, and large. Emakina made the Gazelles list of medium-size companies thanks to its solid figures: 17% growth in its turnover, 153% increase in cash-flow, and 34% in its personnel. Winners were announced in Brussels in a festive event on March 28, at the Tour&Taxis venue.

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Mar 27 2012

It’s not easy, knowing that we were yet again winners of such distinguished prizes, and to have to remain silent about it… But now that the organisers of the Internet Advertising Competition (IAC) gave us their OK, we can proudly announce: we did it; Emakina won two IACs this year!

Our first prize was for the “Test-Achats 50 Avocats ” campaign, under the Best Magazine Online category. The original campaign was supported by social media activities and a viral clip on protecting consumer rights. It generated a record number of citizens engaging with the organisation, thus making it more relevant than ever before.

We also won the Outstanding Website award for Belgium Rollers’s new home page, designed by Emakina. Thanks to its original funky characters and marvelous design, the website presents to its visitors the fun urban universe in the Roller Parade spirit. All that’s left is scrolling and clicking around this dynamic website in order to learn about the event!

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Mar 5 2012

The Delhaize Dream Job Website, created by Emakina, won the ‘Best in Class’ prize under the ‘Recruitment’ category, in the 2011 competition of the Interactive Media Awards (IMA). This announcement comes shortly after Emakina was bestowed six other awards in this year’s competition. The IMA recognize the highest standards of excellence in website design and development and honour individuals and organizations for their outstanding achievement.

The ‘Best in Class’ award is the highest honour of the competition, representing the very best in planning, execution and overall professionalism. In order to win this award level, the Delhaize website had to successfully pass a comprehensive judging process, achieving very high marks in each of the judging criteria – an achievement only a fraction of sites in the IMA competition earn each year.

The judges utilised a points-based scoring system which allows each entry to receive up to 100 points for each of five criteria, adding up to a maximum of 500 points. By adhering to the specific guidelines and criteria of this system judges were able to maintain the highest degree of fairness, accuracy and integrity; competently and effectively evaluate entries; and, deliver clear results.

Websites receiving an overall score between 460 and 479 receive the Outstanding Achievement award. A score of 480 and above entitles the prestigious ‘Best in Class’ award. Our website scored a total of 489 points (96 on Design, 98 on Content, 100 on Features Functionality, 97 on Usability, and 98 on Standard Compliance & Cross-Browser Capability), making it a ‘Best in Class’ laureate. This is the seventh IMA Emakina wins in 2011 and our 24^th IMA since 2008.

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Mar 1 2012

Data News magazine, organiser of the annual Data News Awards for Excellence, has announced its final list of candidates for this year’s awards. Every year, the magazine selects the most promising companies, products, and individuals of the ICT industry, awarding them for their outstanding contribution in one of twelve categories.  The magazine additionally recognizes one individual as the “ICT Personality of the Year”. This year’s list of nominees for the prestigious ICT Personality award includes Brice Le Blévennec, Emakina’s  President and Chief Visionary Officer.

Candidates were selected based on a series of interviews with ICT specialists, university professors, and presidents of professional associations. Le Blévennec’s nomination was justified by the fact that he is “a self-made man”. He started his career at the age of 16, and now serves as president of Emakina – “by far the largest web company in Belgium”. The company’s multi-national profile and its ambitions to become among Europe’s top five – were equally emphasised by Data News’ editorial staff.

Data News has assembled a specialized jury to select the winner in each category. The jury is made up of representatives from the academic world, business, and the magazine’s editorial team. Final winners will be announced at the Data News Awards of Excellence ceremony, to be held on April 26^th at the Tour & Taxis venue.

 Le Blévennec among some of the other candidates for the ICT Personality prize

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Feb 27 2012

Inside Digital Media’s new annual digital communication ranking, made with Feweb, once again places Emakina in the number one position in the Belgian agency list. Investments in marketing in 2011 were influenced by the financial crisis, shortages in human resources and reluctance of advertisers. Inside indicates in its February special issue that not all interactive agencies have reacted as successfully to this second crash test in a decade in the market.

For Emakina, the trend clearly had a positive effect. The 375 staff members generated new growth with well over 20 %. The market confirmed that digital marketing has become an unavoidable necessity, and the digital native agency benefits from this conclusion.

Brice Le Blévennec, CVO of Emakina, further states in Inside Digital Media that companies are entering an era of mature online marketing and promotions. Digital budgets went up, replacing spending in traditional advertising, with a swing towards social and mobile projects.

Large companies are rationalizing their approach. A series of large accounts have decided in 2011 to reduce the number of authorized agencies that can work for them, often on a European scale. Others have opted to work with partners who could offer a portfolio of services, improving the coordination of service providers.

Brice Le Blévennec concludes: “Emakina now harvests the fruit of its investments in strategy, creative, social and mobile competences. As a real digital native agency, we are well equipped, staffed and organized to handle the new market demands. We understand the pressures and challenges our clients face and we can help them to respond with smart, efficient communication solutions”.

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Feb 17 2012

Emakina is one of the big winners in the Interactive Media Awards, with 2 ‘Best in Class’ and 4 ‘Outstanding Achievement’ distinctions. The jury of this worldwide contest follows the highest standards of excellence in web design and development and honours individuals and organizations for their outstanding achievement.

The Interactive Media Council (IMC) who created the awards is an international association of leading web designers, developers, programmers, advertisers and other web-related professionals.

International Crisis Group and Evolta City, Best in Class

The ‘Best in Class’ award is the highest honour bestowed by the Interactive Media Council.

This year, Emakina’s The Reference receives the prestigious award for the International Crisis Group Website. The project successfully combines the serious nature of this worldwide organisation with its dynamic, open communication style, while emphasizing ICG’s values and strengths.

Panasonic Evolta City, a project by Design is Dead also received this highest honour, in the category  ‘Community’. The collaborative social media game brought together players from across Europe to build the biggest Zero CO2-emission City on the World Wide Web.

The jury declared both winners excelled in all areas of the judging criteria and achieved a perfect or near perfect overall score. Both sites represent the highest standards of professionalism, compliance, impeccable planning and execution.

Four Outstanding Achievements

The ‘Outstanding Achievement’ awards are the second highest prize bestowed by IMA. Emakina was selected four times out of the international pack of competitors.

The Schweppesonality campaign won in the ‘Lifestyle’ category. The Schweppes brand is working on a global rebranding, together with Emakina. Schweppesonality is an original activation campaign about the fans of the brand and their charismatic, unexpected and inspiring personalities, true Schweppesonalities.

SamsungWorld received the award in the category ‘Community’ and ‘Consumer Services’ website.  This new online meeting point for Samsung clients channels all opinions and discussions on Samsung and its products towards one, dynamic environment. Visitors exchange ideas and discover promotions, goodies and news items, in a tailor made CRM system.

50 Lawyers last but not least is the winning campaign for Test-Achats, in the category ‘Professional Services’. In a web centric campaign eco system, consumers were invited to file their complaints online and share their experience in social media. The original campaign showed TestAchats/Test-Aankoop lawyers in a military training camp, preparing to fight for the rights of their consumer clients.

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Nov 10 2011

Today is usability day. And Emakina can be proud to announce that The Reference, a company of the Emakina group located in Ghent, is the big winner of yesterday’s Usability Awards 2011.

The new website of Infrax, a client of The Reference, won 2 out of 3 first prizes in the awards, making them the star of the evening. It won the First prize in the category ‘General public’ and the ‘Non-profit and e-gov’ category.

The jury composed of experts in usability, created a shortlist of 10 finalist out of 95 user-friendly websites that entered the competition. The public could then choose their preferred usability site.

Over 3000 votes were cast, giving Infrax the clear ‘thumbs up’ with ¼ of the votes.

In the categories non-profit and profit, the jury also evaluates the selection and gives points on 8 criteria. They assess the quality of the homepage, overview and detail pages, navigation and search functions, forms and content, copywriting and the overall impression. Here again, Infrax won the first prize, in the category ‘Non-profit and e-gov’.

The internet agency from Ghent, The Reference, created the new site for the network manager, with the help of AG Consult who were in charge of testing and fine tuning user friendliness.

Infrax clearly chose from the start of the project to make usability a key objective for their new website. A strongly ‘task based’ approach insures the user at one glance finds the right documents, linked to the online visit, for the specific needs related to electricity, gas, sewers or TV connectivity.

The clear home page and topical pages make the site an easy and pleasant tool for any client. By respecting standards and building in horizontal resting points and ‘jump to links’, the site was made even more to the point and intuitive.

Infrax is a collaboration between Interelectra, Iveg, Infrax West en PBE. Infrax manages the good use, maintenance and development of all public canalization related services (gas, electricity, cable television and/ or sewer systems) on the territory of a large number of communities in Belgium.

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Nov 3 2011

Emakina’s case “Test-Achats / Test Aankoop” won a bronze medal at the MIXX 2011 awards.

The campaign for the leading Belgian consumer association was one of the 18 finalists in the category ‘Direct Response and Lead Generation’. Out of a total of 63 participants,  winning the bronze award is a fine recognition of the creative angle and the smart execution of this campaign.

The action focused on giving back the power to the consumer to protect his rights. How? With  “50 Lawyers at their side”, people no longer need to be frustrated and helpless when they feel cheated by a company or a service. Now they can fight back and win. In Flemish and in French of course…

The campaign team opted for the strategy to pull instead of to push, create a community of consumers who now – thanks to Test Achats – stand up for their justice, with 50 lawyers at their side.

Over a period of 8 months over 12 000 complaints were filed. The special website continues to attract interest and today the counter stands at 17 806  complaints filed. Power to the people!  The once ‘hidden’ added value of the consumer association now is one of their main weapons to prove their value in the competitive market for the consumer’s attention and respect.

The campaign received an ‘approved label’ of the European consumer association ‘Euroconsumers‘ and the success is being exported, to Spain, Italy, Portugal and Brasil.

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Oct 19 2011

Emakina can place six shining new awards statuettes in its international trophy display…

The ‘digital native’ agency won 6 Communicator Awards, five Awards of Excellence and one Award of Distinction from the International Academy of Visual Arts. This prestigious New York based Academy honored campaigns, websites, and video productions made by Emakina with Gold  for Yunomi (Unilever), Schweppes, Microsoft and NGO Close the Gap and with Silver for Baxter’s haemophilia website.

A first Gold Award was for the interactive Community Yunomi for Unilever. This site has become the largest Benelux platform for women and is still growing  in popularity and traffic.

Mona, the Museum of Neverending Art, a project from Emakina.FR, also struck gold. This user-generated artwork attracted over 50 000 contributions and well over 120 000 page views, demonstrating the benefits of Microsoft’s internet Explorer 9  browser.

Another Gold Award was for the new website for Close the Gap, in the NGO Website category. This site combines clear messages with an attractive look and feel, balancing the delivery of serious project information with a user friendly, attractive environment.

For Schweppes, Emakina received two Gold Awards, one in the category ‘video’ for the series ‘Perfect Serve’ and one in the category ‘Rebranding’. Emakina refreshed the sparkle of Schweppes in the eyes of European consumers, giving it a contemporary twist and heightening brand awareness.

The website for Belgian hemophilia patients and the community surrounding them, an initiative from Baxter, received a Silver Award in the Health category.

The Communicator Awards is the leading international awards program recognizing big ideas in marketing and communications. Founded nearly two decades ago, The Communicator Awards receives over 6,000 entries from companies and agencies of all sizes, making it one of the largest awards of its kind in the world. The Communicator Awards is sanctioned and judged by the International Academy of Visual Arts, an invitation-only body consisting of top-tier professionals from acclaimed media, communications, advertising, creative and marketing firms

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Jun 1 2011

Lots of shiny happy people at the Creative Club of Belgium Awards last Friday. Emakina had to be there too, of course. And we did not go home empty handed. Together with our client Schweppes, we received a Bronze Award for the 3 “Perfect Serve” spots. The work convinced the jury of our sparkle for Schweppes. They awarded us in the category Design & Craft – Audiovisual Branding.
Congratulations to our client and to Emakina’s Schweppes Team.

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May 16 2011

Le tandem Design is Dead/Emakina.FR a été une nouvelle fois récompensé et décroche un Webby Awards avec l’attribution du prix “Official Honoree” dans la catégorie NetArt pour le projet de musée virtuel MONA. Présenté à San Fransisco lors du lancement d’Internet Explorer 9 Beta, MONA, the Museum of Neverending Art. est un musée virtuel collaboratif qui a attiré 80 000 visiteurs uniques lors de son premier mois de lancement. Les internautes ont contribué à la création de 50 000 oeuvres générant plus de 120 000 pages vues.

“Microsoft avait sollicité la créativité de plusieurs agences à travers le monde en leur laissant carte blanche” explique Frédéric Bojman, responsable marketing Internet Explorer chez Microsoft. “Le projet présenté par Emakina.fr et Design is dead a très rapidement attiré notre attention : il permettait de laisser les internautes jouer avec la toile, tout en illustrant les qualités techniques d’Internet Explorer 9 – la rapidité notamment. Ce qui est d’autant plus intéressant, c’est de voir que ce public virtuel a réellement joué le jeu. Nous sommes très fiers, au travers de ce projet, de permettre à nos partenaires français de démontrer leur créativité et leurs compétences techniques.”

En 2010, Emakina et Design is Dead avait déjà décroché un «Official Honoree» aux Webby Awards pour “deFilharmonie for Kids“. Organisés aux Etats-Unis par l’Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, les Webby Awards, surnommés les “Oscars de l’Internet” par la presse américaine, consacrent chaque année les idées les plus innovantes dans le monde de l’Internet à l’échelle mondiale.

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May 16 2011

The tandem Design is Dead/Emakina.FR has won the prize ‘Official Honoree’ in the Netart category for MONA, the Museum of Neverending Art. This is a collaborative virtual museum that has been entirely been developed in HTML 5. It has been presented in San Francisco for the launch of Internet Explorer 9 Beta.

MONA, which is designed to be a virtual artistic play garden, has attracted 80 000 unique visitors in its first month. Surfers have contributed to the creation of 50,000 works of art, which has led to over 120 000 viewed pages.

“Microsoft had asked several agencies in the world to let their creativity flow. They all got carte blanche”, explains Frédéric Bojman, the Internet Explorer marketing manager at Microsoft. “The project presented by Emakina.FR and Design is Dead has very quickly attracted our attention because it allows surfers to play with the canvas, and because it illustrates all the technical qualities of Internet Explorer 9, and in particular its speed. And it’s even more interesting because the virtual audience has really played the game.”

This is not a first for Emakina: in 2010, Design is Dead had already won an Official Honoree prize at the Webby Awards for ‘deFilharmonie for Kids’.

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Apr 27 2011

The jury of the IAC Awards has just delivered its verdict in the States. Emakina Group has received three new distinctions, for MONA, Microsoft’s virtual museum, the repositioning of the Schweppes brand and the Facebook campaign for Powerade.

MONA, the Museum of Neverending Art is a collaborative virtual museum, imagined by Design is Dead/Emakina.FR for the launch of Microsoft Internet Explorer 9. At the IAC it won the prize for Best Arts Interactive application. This museum is designed to live forever and is a grand work of international collaborative art.

Emakina/Agency has won the prize of Outstanding Integrated ad campaign for its repositioning of the Schweppes brand. The agency has given the different ranges a new identity, has modernized the logo, has made a series of films and visuals for the entire range, has developed POS, event, activation, on-trade, off-trade and has put the new website for Schweppes Europe online, with a viral video campaign and an activation contest that used a lot of social media. Today, this new positioning is the guide for all communication agencies with which Schweppes works in Europe.

And last but not least, the Facebook application that Emakina.FR has made for Powerade, has received an Outstanding Social Media campaign award. This game offers users the opportunity to challenge their friends on a virtual field. It is designed to get the attention of sports and football fanatics and point out the benefits of a sports drink such as Powerade.
In less than 6 months, 98.000 players have registered for the application, called Football Challenge Powerade. On average, each player played 400 matches. And no less than 130.000 users have shared the campaign on their Facebook wall.

The IAC Awards are yearly awards organized by the American Web Marketing Association. They award the best creative Internet campaigns in the world.

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