Plymouth-based agency up for two top awards

Plymouth-based digital marketing agency, Optimus Performance Marketing (Optimus), has been shortlisted by the CIM (The Chartered Institute of Marketing) for two national CIM Marketing Excellence Awards under the Headline Category ‘Agency of the Year’ as well as ‘Innovation in the Service Sector’. The CIM Marketing Excellence Awards is an annual event created to highlight, celebrate and promote excellence within the Marketing industry.

Optimus were nominated for ‘Agency of the Year’ following their most successful year to date. With year-on-year growth of 73%, their annual turnover broke the £2M mark for the first time. Growth was driven by various factors including; company repositioning and investment, growth across their existing client base and new client wins including; Ripley’s Entertainment, The Savile Row Company and Tile Giant to name but a few. Delivering online sales is their company ethos and in the latest year they were responsible for driving over £55M in online client revenue, placing Optimus on the map as the leading digital marketing agency in the South West.

The ‘Innovation in the Service Sector’ award nomination was a result of the pioneering development of a new content marketing platform called Type the Hype (TtH), launched in August 2015. TtH was designed to make blogger outreach simple yet powerful, and – critically – measureable for brands.The technology has been developed entirely in house by Optimus and fuses together a database of creative talent with strategic campaign management that rewards bloggers for the content they produce, whilst providing the brands with the quality, credible content needed to drive their awareness and sales. Early success has seen TtH partner with established brands such as Apricot, Chi Chi, Crew Clothing and several others. Furthermore, the platform has already generated exposure by celebrity endorsers as well as national TV and media coverage including; ITV’s ‘This Morning’, Mirror Online, Celebrity Big Brother, MailOnline and Reveal Magazine.

The Awards will be taking place on April 14th 2016 and will consist of 21 individual categories alongside a prestigious black tie event at the Grosvenor House Hotel, London. BMW, Dell, The Post Office, Linkedin, Universal and Visa will be amongst some of the big named brands judging the awards this year.

“It’s a pleasure to announce the finalists of the Marketing Excellence Awards,”comments Chris Daly, acting Chief Executive of CIM. “We’ve seen some fantastic entries this year and it is already clear that this will be a great representation of our industry’s hard work over the past 12 months. The finalists are varied, innovative and showcase a range of high quality campaigns. The point in these Awards is to remind us why we do what we do, and to demonstrate the impact that creative and well- delivered marketing can have across businesses.”

Mark Russell, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Optimus, commented: “The CIM is the world’s leading professional marketing body with over 100 years of expertise, so to be shortlisted for not just one, but two awards is real affirmation of the incredible 12 Months we have had. Our finalist status is recognition that our business has met the judge’s criteria as an agency that has excelled in using world-class creativity, insight and innovation.

Mark went on to say: “Here at Optimus, we all live by the ethos of driving online and growth sales. This message is supported with hard evidence and is really resonating with our clients, providing us a strong platform to build on going in to 2016.”