Attracting entries from across Europe, the ESA Awards applauded excellence in sponsorship in five distinct categories. BT was awarded the Business to Community Award and beat off strong competition from the other category winners to claim the overall award.
The other campaign winners were: The Unilever Series at Tate Modern (Business to Business); AIB Banking on the Ryder Cup (Business to Consumer); Norwich Union’s Join Our Team (Business to Employee); and Allianz BMW ORACLE Racing Sponsorship (International).
Accenture Silver Sponsorship of Skandia Team GB (Business to Business) and MTV under the Radar (Business to Consumer) were both highly commended by the judges.
Karen Earl, ESA Chairman, who presented the trophies said: “The response to these Awards has been tremendous as sponsors, rights holders and agencies alike have shown a keenness to compete against each other on a European stage.
“Our independent panel of judges were impressed with the high standard of entries. Their decision to nominate BT as the top campaign was due to the considerable impact the sponsorship programme achieved on a low cost exploitation budget. It was judged the most innovative of all, giving the greatest benefit not only to the sponsor, BT, but to the community at large”.
Beth Courtier, Head of BT’s Community Programme said: “We are delighted to win as our campaign had a relatively small budget and we were up against some very big high quality entries. Our sponsorship is all about sustainability; it started in 2000 and each year we have reviewed it and added new elements and enhancements to make it work even better. The team behind the campaign is passionate about working with the community”.
