5 November 2004

UK Mail Awards 2004 - winners announced

Triangle are pleased to announce the winners of the first UK Mail Awards.

The awards were presented at a packed London venue in front of a prestigious mail audience. Hosted by Declan Curry, BBC Breakfast's Business presenter, the Awards were launched with the aim of recognising excellence within the UK's Postal sector.

Being the first UK Mail Awards, the organisers worked closely with the sponsors to ensure that the chosen categories recognised the most important and influential areas of the industry. A panel of distinguished judges selected the recipients of the five awards, covering Innovation, Database Management, Domestic Marketing Campaign, Technology and Mail Centre of the Year. The panel met at the UK Mail Show in Olympia, before the Awards presentation dinner, to make their final decisions from an already short-listed pool of entrants.

The following companies were this year's award winners in the five categories:

DATABASE MANAGEMENT - sponsored by Royal Mail

Winner: The ReaD Group Plc for its Data Domination!
The winner was able to demonstrate considerable industry knowledge and understanding over several years. They have a progressive forward strategy and had consistently improved their product offering with new and upgraded products. As the product range had been extended they were able to demonstrate significant customer uptake with value added to the user through the effectiveness of the products.

DOMESTIC MARKETING CAMPAIGN - sponsored by Deutsche Post Global Mail UK

Winner: WDMP for its TalkTalk re-Launch
The winner used a very wide range of channels and shown evidence of an attempt to really integrate their marketing activity. There was a strong role for direct marketing, including direct mail, and evidence of targeting of customers, including existing customers. The judges liked the strong creative approach which was backed by evidence of campaign effectiveness.

INNOVATION - sponsored by TNT Mail

Winner: Express Dairies for its Dairy Delivery scheme.
For meeting all the criteria of the award and for providing the first step in a series of major changes to serve the community’s need for delivery of mail, packets and parcels, this applicant constructed a base on which further value added services could be built.

MAIL CENTRE OF THE YEAR - sponsored by UK Mail

Winner: Northern Ireland for the most improved distribution centre
This award sought to identify the Royal Mail centre that had either improved the most in the past year or has introduced best practices that have had an identifiable impact on service. The winning centre that met all of these criteria and demonstrated positive initiatives.

TECHNOLOGY - sponsored by Triangle Management Services

Winner: Optecon for its O42 Product
For providing a web based selection and decision tool that allows marketers to include highly personalised dynamic messages to bills and statements, and that creates genuine added value to transactional mail.

Next year's UK Mail Awards will be held in London on 1 November 2005.

With the exception of the Mail Centre of the Year category, these awards were open to applications or nominations for any UK postal operator, service provider or direct mail agency, whether public or private, small or large.

Applications for next year will be open from July 2005 at www.mailawards.com/ukma

Notes to editor:

• This is the 1st UK Mail Awards and is an annual programme

• Next year’s ceremony will be on 1 November in London

• The UK Mail Awards takes place at the same time as the UK Mail Show. They are organised by Triangle Management Services, part of Triangle Management Services, based in the UK

• For further information or copies of photographs from the event please contact Triangle on +44 (0) 8709 507900.

Triangle Contacts:

Tel: +44 (0)870 950 7900
Fax: +44 (0)870 950 7910 8