Bees Awards recognises social media marketing as worldwide phenomenon

One-fifth of the planet is using social media platforms. That new reality calls for a new expertise. "Social Media Marketing is not a matter of one country, one language or few companies. It is happening everywhere on the planet, in every language" according to Cara Drolshagen, co-founder and vice-president of The Bees Awards. As testament that social media is a worldwide phenomenon, Bees Awards received entries from 21 countries across 5 continents in 2010. Drolshagen continued, stating, "74% of these entries came from large brands such as Ikea, Old Spice and Toyota. Social Media Marketing is serious business and it's growing faster each day."

*Source: Internet World Stats, 30 June 2010

The 2011 Jury announced today is composed of the following professionals from 13 countries:

• Andrei Anischenko, CEO, Grape (Russia)

• David Armano, SVP, Edeman Digital (USA)
  
• David Leonard, president & COO, DDB (Canada)
  
• David Rosenberg, director of Emerging Media, JWT New York (USA)
• Dean McBeth, sr. digital strategist, Wieden+Kennedy Portland (USA)
  
• Désirée Maurd, creative director & partner, Prime (Sweden)
• Ellen Hou, head of planning, TBWA (China)
  
• Eric Mergenthaler, CEO, Havas Media (Mexico)
  
• Eva Van den Bulcke, co-creative director & partner, Sid Lee (Canada)
• Gitanjali Sriram, head, Naked Comm (India)
  
• Katharina Lohse, CEO, McCann Erickson (Switzerland)
  
• Mike Geiger, chief digital officer & partner, Goodby, Silverstein & Partners (USA)
• Ottavio Nava, CEO, We Are Social (Italy)
  
• Rob Hill, group head of strategy, Ogilvy Cape Town (South Africa)
  
• Sam Flemming, founder & chairman, CIC (China)
  
• Toshiya Fukuda, CEO, 777interactive (Japan)
  
• Yogev Reinhold, new business director, Publicis E-dologic (Israel)

The student categories will be reviewed by the following jury members:

• Niklas Frings-Rupp, unternehmensinhaber, Miami Ad School Europe (Germany)
  
• Carlos Vazquez, principal, Dichotomy Consulting (USA)
  
• Peter Kamstedt, program director, Berghs School of Communication (SE)
  
• Kate Humphries, course leader, Media Design School (New Zealand)
  
• Zorica Micic, student, last year student winner (Bosnia)

These professionals (beesawards.com/bees/2011jury) have been selected on the base of their expertise, the references they received from peers, their passion for social media and their geographic location. Together, they will assess the best social media marketing practices, define standard practices and establish the greatest ethics for the long term growth of the profession.

"Social Media Marketing is not revolutionary. It is evolutionary." says co-founder & president, Bastien Beauchamp. "It remains faithful to the principals of the founders of our industry: Albert Lasker, David Ogilvy, and Bill Bernback. These founders felt strongly that a company should always care about its brand and its reputation, always try to build a brand that is truthful to its product, understand its consumers, and communicate with personality. These marketing fundaments don't change and The Bees Awards 2011 Jury reflects the fact that large marketing agencies evolve in their practices but are also challenged every day by small specialised social media agencies."

Important dates:

24 January: Social media, public relations, advertising agencies, brands and consultants from around the world can submit their work at www.beesawards.com
31 March: Deadline for entries
18 April: Nominees announced
3 May: Award ceremony at the Legion of Honor, San Francisco on 3 May 2011 at 7pm and will be live-streamed over the Internet.

Website: www.beesawards.com
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/the-bees-awards
Facebook: www.facebook.com/BeesAwards
Twitter: twitter.com/BeesAwards