Here’s to innovation, the star of last night’s MITX What’s Next Awards.
The Massachusetts Innovation and Technology Exchange, aka MITX (pronounced MY-Tex), is an organization that celebrates the intersecting greatness of New England’s tech, creative and marketing communities. And no celebration is complete without awards. The What’s Next Awards highlight the year’s best inventions, from wearable technologies to marketing automation. Read up on a few of the notable winners from last night’s awards ceremony.
Best UX – Product
Affectionally referred to as the “Steve Jobs was right” award, this category focuses on recognizing the best overall user experience and simplified product use. Simple, intuitive and engaging is a tricky trifecta to achieve, which is probably just as Jobs would like it. Fittingly, an iOS app took home the award.
Winner: Rue La La iOS App by Rue La La
Best Use of Experiential Marketing
When you integrate the digital into physical space, transformative things can happen. The mixture of digital tools with retail installations, digitally powered events, robotics/mechanics, and sensor based experiences are all under consideration for this award. The winning project showed off the usability of Adobe design software in a head-to-head battle between designers…and produced some pretty cool posters for fake bands in a mere eight minutes. Check out the finalists below (the one on the left was the champion).
Winner: Battle of the Hands at Adobe Max by SapientNitro
Best Use of Online Video (as content channel)
Video is the white-hot area of the content marketing sun. Humans gobble up visual content with more ease and enthusiasm than written word. Winning this category means you’ve created an entertaining use of the medium that engages viewers and builds brand awareness. Which is exactly what this winner did, showing roofers, plumbers, drywallers and painters how a Ram-built van helps them do their job better.
Winner: The Right Van for the Job (Ram Trucks) by SapientNitro
Best Use of Social (#awesome)
Finding opportunities to innovate in the social media space is increasingly difficult. Those who do create new ways of shaping social conversations, whether for a single channel or multiple, certainly deserve a shiny award. Especially when ingeniously combining Breaking Bad, Craigslist and real estate.
Winner: Century 21 Breaking Bad Listing by Mullen
Best of Industry: Consumer Goods
Recognizing the best interactive efforts to reach the all-important consumer, this award is reserved for contenders that “transform consumer goods into consumer greats.” The category includes non-packaged goods, such as real estate and automobiles. Which is fortunate, because the winners created digital experiences to engage customers of a personal aircraft manufacturer and a cymbal company. (We’re pretty sure neither of those products are easy to enclose in cardboard.) And you read that right: winners. It was a tie!
Winner(s): Cessna.com by Digitas LBI…
AND Zildjian Sound Lab by Verndale
What’s Next: Disruptive Genius
What does it take to be a disruptive genius in modern marketing? This MITX What’s Next Award seeks out individuals and companies in the web or mobile space that are “pushing the limits, throwing the industry off kilter, and leading the charge.” The 2014 Disruptive Genius started off as an app-testing company called uTest, growing to be the leader in testing digital experiences on web, mobile and wearables. If you have an app that needs testing, consider giving them a call.
Winner: Applause
Keep Innovating!
Now that we’ve scratched the surface, check out the rest of the award categories and their winners. Looking for an innovative agency for your brand’s next endeavor? Take your search over to Agency Spotter. Easily find the advertising, digital or innovation agency that meet your needs, in Boston or beyond.
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