Bluhalo Joins .Net Awards Panel

The .net Awards celebrate the best in web design and development, and are brought to you by the world's best-selling magazine for web builders - .net. The 16 categories for 2010 range from Design Agency of the Year and Mobile Site of the Year through to Community site of the year.

Bluhalo's very own Dan Steele and Alastair MacMichael have been invited to join this year's prestigious judging panel, alongside the likes of some of the best-known names in the industry such as Google, Yahoo! and TweetDeck. You can view the impressive line-up by visiting the .net awards judges page. With this many industry experts reviewing entries, it is clear why a .net award is one of the most sought after in our industry, and you can certainly be sure that the winners are going to be well-deserving of the accolade!

The awards are currently at the public voting stage, so if you'd like to voice your opinions on the best of digital this year, you can vote now by visiting the .net awards voting page, public voting closes on 12th October.

Dan Steele, a developer at Bluhalo and previous contributor to .net magazine said "It was a great honour to be invited to be a judge in the awards, I can't wait to see the shortlist!"

Alastair MacMichael, Bluhalo's Managing Director, added "I'm really pleased to have been invited to join this year's panel, the current nominees are so interesting, I think the results of the public vote will be a close one with many nominees worthy of a place on the shortlist. I very much look forward to being involved in the judging process."

Final winners will be announced on 19th November.

Jocelyn Kirby
Marketing & Business Development Manager

Bluhalo's Spurs site gets NMA site of the week

We love working on the Spurs website (http://www.tottenhamhotspur.com/) - it's a great site, with a wealth of top quality content.

NMA landed on my desk this morning, and to my (and the Bluhalo team's) delight, the Spurs site has been awarded site of the week.

With an impressive 88/100, scoring 22/25 for content, 22/25 for usability, 21/25 for branding and 23/25 for monetisation, we're delighted, to say the least. A lot of dedication and passion went into the redesign of the latest version of the Spurs website and we're really pleased to see our expertise and efforts rewarded!

To view the full article, visit the NMA website.



Jocelyn Kirby
Marketing & Business Development Manager
@jocelynkirby

The Digital Cream Floats to the Top

I was lucky enough to be invited to judge some creative awards the other day – not just for digital, but for all channels – TV, radio, DM, SP, POS/instore and digital. Having worked in most of these at one time or another, it was good to see some other media than digital again. Good, but a little underwhelming.

Some of the work in other channels was good, most of it was ok, and some of it wasn’t so great. But it was in digital that the work really sang. All the judges agreed that digital was the most hotly contested category, by a long way.

I remember reading in one of the trade press magazines in 2006 that digital accounted for just 5% of most companies’ marketing spend. Judging by the production values of some of the entries, either marketing budgets must be massive these days or marketing directors have been persuaded to part with more cash in return for some truly excellent and engaging brand experiences.

Ewan Gee
Creative Director

Marketing Magazine Top Digital Agency

Bluhalo/GyroHSR has featured strongly in this year's Marketing Magazine Digital Leagues, ranking 19th largest digital agency, showing 28% growth on the previous year's digital activity.

The ranking follows closely on from Bluhalo/GyroHSR's recent ranking in New Media Age's Top 100 report, highlighting the company's dominance as the largest digital agency in the South of England and 8th largest digital marketing agency in the UK.

The continual growth of the agency means that there is a continual need for top digital talent, which you can find out more about here.

Awarded Place in Top Digital Leagues

We're delighted to announce that we have been ranked in one of the UK's most prestigious league tables - Marketing Magazine's Digital League.

The report, containing some of the country's most respected digital agencies, which include design and build, digital marketing and digital media agencies, ranks agencies based upon their digital turnover.

Alongside the Marketing Digital Leagues, Bluhalo has also recently featured in Deloitte's Tech Fast 500 EMEA and Fast 50, NMA Top 100 and Media Momentum's fastest growing technology companies, all of which confirm Bluhalo's continuing success and pedrigree in delivering exceptional digital projects.

Shorlisted for MCCA Best Awards

Bluhalo is pleased to announce that we have been shortlisted for the MCCA Best Awards in the category Best Communication Campaign Featuring a Website.

The entry showcased our work in producing Hi-Tec's WetisDry campaign microsite, created to support the launch of the Hi-Tec ion-mask footwear range.

Final results will be revealed at the awards dinner on 5th March, so watch this space!

To view the full shortlist, visit www.bestawards.co.uk.

Ranked in Deloitte Fast 500

Following our recent appearance in the Deloitte Tech Fast 50 as the 36th fastest growing tech company in the UK, Bluhalo has now been ranked as the 219th fastest growing tech company in Europe, Middle East and Africa in the Deloitte Tech Fast 500 EMEA award.

The award covers all areas of technology — from Internet to life sciences, from computers to semiconductors — and covers both public and private companies, making the achievement all the more significant.

The Deloitte Technology Fast 500 EMEA program recognises technology companies that have achieved the fastest rates of annual revenue growth in Europe, the Middle East and Africa during the past five years with Bluhalo acheiving an impressive growth of almost 800%.

Spencer Gallagher joins Hantsweb Awards judging panel

The Hantsweb Awards celebrate excellence in website design, accessibility and service. The awards are open to any website based in Hampshire and Isle of Wight.

This year, Spencer Gallagher, Founder and Managing Director of Bluhalo Ltd and European Head of Strategy at Mighty Mouse Digital, joins the judging panel for the sports category. Joining him in selecting the area's best sports website is Andy Steggall, a sports presenter, producer and filmmaker who regularly presents Sky Sports News and anchors Meridian's Soccer Night programme.

Spencer and Andy will be judging the nominated websites against good practice web criteria. The winning site will be accessible, easy to use, be well used and will provide up to date information and a useful service to its audience.

To find our more, visit the Hantsweb Awards website.

To view profiles of all judges, including Spencer, visit the judges page.

If you'd like to nominate a website (you have until 3rd August 08!), visit the nominate a website page.

Bluhalo Nominated for Dadi Awards

The nomination results were released at 5pm today, and after a few tense moments of breath-holding whilst scrolling down the nominations page, I was delighted to discover that we have been nominated for the Dadi Awards in the Best In-House Website or Campaign category!

Entries to the Dadi Awards are up 50% on last year's entries, so to be nominated is a huge achievement. Our website has shown some impressive stats since launch including 75% increase in website visits, 194% increase in time on site and 1005% increase in revenue generated directly from our website - well we have to practice what we preach don't we?!

The final category winners will be announced on 'Dadi's Day', 31st October 2008.

To view the final nominations for all categories, visit the Dadi Awards website.

Ranked In Top Awards!

Last night, Bluhalo was announced as the 2nd fastest growing digital agency in the highly sought after Media Momentum awards.

The invitation-only event, organised by investment bank GP Bullhound, recognises the hottest and fastest growing digital media companies in the UK.



“Competition was as fierce as in previous years, and here at GP Bullhound we are proud to elevate these outstanding achievers. We hope that these awards will provide even greater momentum to our finalists in their respective fields as they continue to develop and grow,” said Manish Madhvani, Co-founder and Partner, GP Bullhound.

The top 50 fastest growing digital media companies in the UK are ranked in a revenue-based league with Bluhalo ranking 18th overall, coming second to only one other digital agency.

Bluhalo has achieved a highly prized ranking in Media Momentum’s Fastest Growing Awards each year since the awards were first introduced.

Bluhalo’s Business Development Director, Vimal Patel, commented; “I am delighted that our achievements have been recognised in these prestigious awards and I speak on behalf of the entire team at Bluhalo when I say that we are proud to be part of one of the UK’s top digital agencies. It is through hard work, dedication and a commitment to consistently delivering fantastic websites to our clients that we continue to be the successful agency that we are today.”

We're Top in Europe!

At the Deloitte's Technology Fast 500 EMEA ranking award ceremony last night, Bluhalo was ranked the 166th fastest growing technology company in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

This is a phenomenal achievement and we are delighted to achieve this recognition in these highly regarded awards. The awards are based on entrants' revenue growth over the last five years with ours showing an impressive 1108%! Our growth has been entirely organic and is tribute to the dedication of our MD Spencer Gallagher and the team at Bluhalo for all of the hard work that has been put into making Bluhalo a great company to work for and the perfect choice of agency for anyone looking for a new website.

The biggest bonus for us is that the awards include a whole host of technology companies, so not only are we top-ranking in our industry, but we're doing a pretty good job of holding our own in the highly competitive technology market as a whole.

Ranked again!

We're popping up in all sorts of league tables at the moment! That's got to be a good sign!

This time it's Marketing Magazine's Digital Leagues. The leagues identify the top digital agencies based on turnover from the previous financial year.

This year, Bluhalo was ranked 57th, 12 places ahead of our ranking last year in the same league.

And after appearing in the Deloitte Tech Fast 50, we're looking forward to seeing where we rank in the Deloitte European Tech Fast 500 later this month.

Watch this space!

Geeks Vs. Freaks

I've now nearly been at Bluhalo for three months, so I thought it worthwhile to jot down a couple of my key thoughts so far.

I'm lucky (or unlucky if you count my agency that folded spectacularly in the original dot com gold rush!) enough to have experienced working at four very different digital agencies, so it's very interesting for me to look back at compare how they've all approached things. All have had straplines that are designed to sum up their USP or 'difference'. One of them (the biggest agency I've worked for) used 'ideas that work'. This one always made me laugh, as it's hardly going to be 'ideas that don't work'. Look at bit deeper though and you can see the point. There's absolutely no point in presenting an idea to a client that is likely to win a handful of Revolution Awards, a fist of IPA Effectiveness awards and a gold Cyber Lion at Cannes IF the idea isn't based on sound commercial judgement. As a strapline, 'ideas that work' is very noble and tips its hat at commerciality. The reality was occasionally very different though and sometimes it was obvious that an idea was more award-winning than ROI winning.

Bluhalo's strapline is 'Creativity Cultivated'. 'What does that mean?' was one of the first questions I asked in my interview. Spencer explained it with his normal passion and it makes sense. A team built round the skills and ambitions of the individual is more likely to succeed than not. Most agencies talk about a collaborative style of working and this is rightly very important, but it's not only collaboration with our clients that produces the best results, it's also how we work with each internally and produce great ideas. Afterall, without an idea, you are nothing!

It was this idea of collaboration that really got me thinking about my agency experience. It also got me thinking about a phrase Spencer had used as panelist at the E-Den event....'Geeks v Freaks'. I had never heard of this before, but basically it's an old digital description that sums up the age-old battle for control between the tecchies (affectionately named 'geeks'!) and the creatives (equally affectionalty referred to as the 'freaks'). To me, the success of an agency largely depends on how you get these two groups working together.

Alas, not all agencies will agree on this. My first agency (the one that died in the year 2000!), was very much driven by the technical approach and this was reflected in the hierarchy of the agency. Tech first, design second. The Geeks were in control and ruled the roost at brainstorms. At my second agency, now 170 strong and one of the biggest in the UK, the approach was the complete antithesis of my first. Very much formed in the image of BBH advertising (think Levi's, Audi and Vodafone), where the founder was the MD, the Freaks ran the show. To such an extent that I don't ever recall a brainstorm with a tecchie present. Ideas were generated by 'teams', which comprised of an art director and a copywriter. These were then presented back to the client in a pretty much unadulterated form.

I'm not 100% convinced that this traditional advertising approach always works. Yes, creative boundaries are pushed and I would suggest that it is the correct approach for online advertising campaigns, but is it the best approach for websites? Does a creative team consider in enough detail the overall user experience or functionality that will create a killer app? To me, the jury is still out.

So, the big question is how does Bluhalo's approach differ? Well, it's early days for me, but I don't sense a hierarchy between the Geeks and Freaks. We talk about a collaborative style of working and I genuinely think we do a good job of it. Believe me, it's not an easy task and a digital agency without argument or debate is going about things in the wrong way. We also use another strapline when trying to explain our overall approach to clients - 'by making our clients successful, we make ourselves successful. If I were a client in the process of appointing an agency, this is exactly the philosophy I would be looking for. I would want to partner an agency that focuses on achieving my commercial objectives, rather than producing functionality for functionality's sake or design to impress an awards judge. This is what Bluhalo does well and doesn't need to be any more complicated than that.

I'll tell you if I've changed my opinion in another three months!

Michael Brandreth