Gold star for new look IAB Awards

As we report in the news section, it was the revamped IAB Awards last night – and I thought they were a vast improvement on last year’s somewhat amateur effort.  

With a new CEO, new categories, a new format and a new venue, it was always going to be different to the previous occasion, which felt like the organisers had gone stale and a little lazy.

I still remember newsreader Natarsha Belling ticking off the talking crowd like we were naughty schoolkids. At the time, the editor of B&T (which admittedly was me) described the event as the Inane Amateur and Boring Awards.

Last time round, the problems began before the event with what seemed like a random and slapdash judging process. Perhaps unsurprisingly, I wasn’t invited back to judge. But from those who were involved, I get the sense that there was more rigour this time round. The new scoring system and categories – adopted form the US’s MIXX Awards – have clearly helped a lot.