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Last night (September 26th), the Steel Yard in London was abuzz with excitement for the Strategic Mail Partnership (SMP) Awards 2024.
The yearly awards show, organised by print-focused marketing agency Nutshell Creative Marketing (Nutshell), and with sponsors including UK Mail, Canon, and Konica Minolta, celebrates achievements in the print and mailing industry.
The event was hosted by comedian Ellie Taylor, back by popular demand after having hosted the previous year’s event. Taylor regaled the lively and raucous crowd with a set of stand-up comedy, before presenting the awards.
The awards on offer were in three distinct categories: the Mail Performance Award given to an outstanding piece of printed direct mail; the Sustainable Campaign Award for campaigns that have reduced environmental impacts; and the Bright Futures Award for young people showing talent in the print and mail industry.
The awards were tiered, with Bronze, Silver, and Gold levels up for grabs, as well as a coveted Platinum Performance Award for overall outstanding achievement in print and mail.
For Lucy Swanston, chair of the SMP and managing director of Nutshell, while the event is a great chance for networking and celebrating success, there is also a strong strategic benefit to the awards.
“This is something that we don’t do as a vanity project,” Swantson explained to Print Monthly at the event.
“This is about getting really robust case studies, that we can send out to brands and really showcase the power of mail, in a multi-channel world which can feel increasingly digital.”
The winner of the Platinum Performance this year was the Royal National Lifeboat Institution’s (RNLI’s) in-house agency, in collaboration with Go inspire, Encore Group and Paragon.
Integrated marketing company Webmart won awards in all three categories, including a Bright Futures Award for client strategist at Webmart, Darryl Worbey.
Speaking to Print Monthly at the event, Worbey said: “It was a real surprise to win in all three awards, let alone one. For the team, I think it just shows everything that we can offer.”
Worbey went on to speak about the importance of spotlighting younger people within print and mail, and the industry trends he has seen.
“I started in the industry at 16,” he explained, “and I never saw that many young people coming through. That has been a key issue within the industry, it being predominantly male and a lot of older people. But now it’s great to see a lot of women on the shortlist coming through as well.”
Asked whether he thought that more young people were joining the industry, he commented: “I think things are changing but it’s a slow progress, if I’m perfectly honest.
“We’re seeing younger people, but mostly getting lower level jobs. That’s what you expect, but you hope they can learn, progress, and work their way through. So I would like to hope that there’s more progression for young people within the print industry moving forward.”
Another Bright Futures Award was given to Maddie Reynolds, senior account manager for Paragon Dagenham. Reynolds was presented with a Silver Award in the category.
Speaking at the show, Reynolds explained: “We’re an industry of very few young individuals and it’s nice to see people who are championing us in print. I think the Strategic Mail Partnership really champion that young talent within our industry, which is so important.”
Reynolds spoke of the drive for a younger workforce at Paragon. “We’re really big on making sure that young people get those big opportunities,” she explained. “Tonight is a perfect example of that. We have three people up for awards.
“For someone of my age and experience to be given the opportunities that I have over the last year has been really important, and probably quite pivotal in the next couple of years in my career.”
For Lucy Swanston, award shows such as the SMP are a great avenue to affecting that change. “It’s such a broad industry, a creative industry and I think it’s very undersold in universities,” Swanston explained.
“We don’t have enough airtime to actually communicate to younger adults. So having the Bright Futures Award gives us that elevation and gives us case studies to show what these young adults are achieving.”
Instantprint won a Bronze Award in the Sustainability category and a Gold Award in the Mail Performance category. The Mail Performance Award was won for a direct mail campaign in which Instantprint sent a physical book to its customers, to try to demonstrate their prices, quality, and turnarounds in a unique, eye-catching way.
Speaking to Print Monthly, Ally Boldan, PR and communications lead at Instantprint, commented: “This is the first time we have entered the SMP awards, and so to come away with two awards is just incredible.
“The team don’t know yet because I’ve got no WiFi! But they will be absolutely buzzing. The mailing that we won this award for was such a labour of love, we put so much effort into it.
“The campaign spanned across marketing and e-commerce teams, graphic designers, copywriters, and the production team that produced it, and when you add the sustainability drive as well, it involves everybody in the business. So to be able to come back and share that with them, it will be a really good piece of news.”
The partners of the event and the board members of the SMP span across the entire print and mail industry, and attending the event were members of other industry bodies including the Independent Print Industries Association (IPIA), Data & Marketing Association (DMA), and the British Printing Industries Federation (BPIF).
In our interview with Swanston, she emphasised the importance of industry-wide collaboration.
She explained: “We’ve really tried to develop our community, and what I love is the partnerships the SMP have now with other trade industry associations.
“It’s not seen as competition. We’ve got the IPIA, the DMA, the BPIF, Two Sides, among others, and we’ve all come together because we’ve all got amazing specialisms. We have recognised now that the collaborative approach is incredibly powerful.”
Swanston also spoke of a new eco-friendly initiative being launched in collaboration with these organisations, as well as Royal Mail.
Swanston explains: “In this new initiative that we are looking to launch, we are developing a partnership of all of those organisations. That initiative is going to directly showcase to brands how sustainable print and direct mail can be. That is definitely one to look out for.”
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