SMP awards raise a glass to rising stars and green printing

Held in London’s Steelyard nightclub, the lively occasion saw hundreds of printers, suppliers, and industry colleagues gather to raise a glass to the industry’s achievements, with the SMP also using the event to tease details of its upcoming PrintGreen sustainability knowledge centre.

Strictly Come Dancing’s Ellie Taylor reprised her role as host, adeptly handling a chatty crowd and whirling through the awards’ three categories, punctuated by on-stage pyrotechnics.

Spread over three categories – Bright Futures, Sustainable Campaign, and Mail Performance – the awards saw 11 prizes and three highly commended awards handed out.

The night’s top prize, the platinum Mail Performance Award, went to the RNLI’s 200th anniversary fundraising campaign in collaboration with Go Inspire, Paragon and Encore Group.

Jo Scott, charities director at Go Inspire – which also won highly commended in the same category, told Printweek: “We’re really lucky to be able to support our charities to fund their causes.

“The event has been fantastic, it’s been great to celebrate with the other agencies in the market and to see what everyone’s been up to – there have been some really excellent winners.”

Darryl Worbey, customer strategist at Webmart, took home gold in the Bright Futures category, with his team also winning gold in Mail Performance and Sustainability – a clear run of all three categories.

He told Printweek: “It’s nice to be recognised, especially together with other Bright Futures nominees who could easily have deserved to win on the night as well. It’s a really good event, it’s nice to acknowledge all the talent and peoples’ work throughout the year.”

“We’re incredibly fortunate as a community – I just love seeing everybody have a good time,” Lucy Swanston, chair of the SMP, told Printweek.

“We’re a huge advocate of collaboration, so it’s wonderful to get everybody together and allow up-and-coming talent to network with people who’ve been in the industry for generations.”

Over the past three years, the SMP has grown from 140 to around 800 members; its membership is free, and members enjoy perks such as discounted access to services and educational resources.

“We’re doing so much more for our members, whether it’s free training or support from the DMA and Royal Mail – we’re so lucky in the fact that we work with all these trade associations – the IPIA, BPIF, DMA, Two Sides, and more – the expertise that we can pull from these different organisations is incredibly powerful.”

Teasing the SMP’s new PrintGreen knowledge hub at the awards, Swanston said: “It’s a collaboration of all these orgnisations that will allow brands to tap into all the resources they need in one place, and really hammer out the sustainability element. It’s not about bashing digital [marketing] but standing up and being proud about our own sustainability.”

Tom Maskill, chief client officer at Webmart, is leading the project. He told Printweek that while the industry had done tremendous work in making print a sustainable medium for marketing, many non-printers were still too ignorant of that message.

He said: “That [knowledge] gap was identified, and so we need a very clear voice to brands and agencies – those who are buying print – because it’s still the case people assume digital has no emissions.

“What we want to do at PrintGreen is harness all the work that’s going on across all these different sustainable groups across the industry and create a single voice of the sector to advocate for sustainable print as a channel and re-educate people.”

Among its resources, PrintGreen will feature a carbon calculation tool from CarbonQuota that will allow companies to check their potential emissions without charge.

“It allows companies to play around with the specifications of a print campaign they’re doing, and understand what factors have a big impact [on emissions]. Then they can get in touch and explore further how to mitigate emissions,” he said.

PrintGreen is expected to launch in Q4 2024.

The full list of winners at the SMP Awards is:

Bright Futures Award

Highly commended – Klaudia Akinis

Bronze – Liam Mellor

Silver – Maddie Reynolds

Gold – Darryl Worbey

Mail Performance Award

Platinum – RNLI in collaboration with Go Inspire, Paragon and Encore Group 

Gold – Webmart

Gold – ZAP~POST

Gold – Adare SEC

Gold – Instantprint

Highly commended – Go Inspire Group

Highly commended -The Dragonfly Agency 

Sustainable Campaign Award

Gold – Webmart

Silver – Eight Group

Bronze – Instantprint