It’s that time of year again - kids back to school, evenings closing in and applications open for the CIM Ireland awards.

Not this year.

Over the last 6 months CIM Ireland has been looking at the format for their annual awards - the outcome being a completely new way of recognising and rewarding marketing excellence in Ireland.

“There are a lot of black tie awards events in the calendar and we wanted to see if we could develop a format that gave people more of an opportunity to find out more about the fantastic campaigns that make it onto the shortlists for the awards” says Eileen Curry, Chair of CIM Ireland.

So it’s time to ditch the tux and the fancy gowns and get ready for Marketing Live - an event that will celebrate all that is good about marketing in Ireland by giving those doing the great work the opportunity to tell us all about it.

There’ll still be the categories to enter.

There’ll still be judging criteria and a group of top-class judges.

“Some really useful feedback we had from previous events was that while it’s great to see who is winning the awards, the previous format didn’t give the audience an opportunity to learn anything about what a winning campaign looks like.” says Marian Norwood, Lead at North West School of Marketing and a volunteer member of the CIM Ireland Board. “That’s why the new format will give the event back to the award finalists - recognising the great campaigns they’re executing while also giving everyone else in the room an opportunity to learn about how they can improve and develop their own campaigns”

The new format will also mean a new time of year for the awards - which will move from November to May.

The event will be a full-day conference with a line-up of great speakers, a Learning Zone featuring the CIM Study centres and a Winners Zone where award winners will be revealed throughout the day.

Eileen Curry said “Given that it’s a new format we’ve still lots to work through - and we rely entirely on our volunteer board to deliver everything that the CIM does in Ireland. There may be a few bumps in the road on the way but it’s time for change - and the end result will be worth it.”

The Marketing Live event will launch in November with applications open until early 2020.

Watch this space for more info over the next few months.