RAD Awards; RADS; RADS 2013; RBI; Recruitment Awards; Employee Engagement; Tonic; Tonic Agency; We are Tonic; recruitment; employer brand

“I’d like to thank my Mom, my Dad, oh, and Sir Tim Berners Lee.”

Written by Tony Fitzpatrick, Brand Consultant at Tonic.

This year saw the 25^th anniversary of the RADs and against my better judgement I decided to go along. Well, when I say ‘I decided’ a more accurate description of what happened would be to say that I was the victim of a pseudo-Shanghaiing by my colleague Tam – one moment I was happily sat at my desk soaking up the sunshine of a glorious EB project, the next I was waking up to the fact I would be spending the evening in the belly of the good ship Grosvenor House.

Still, it was the 25^th anniversary, after all, and we had been promised a retrospective of past endeavours. Personally, I was looking forward to seeing such greats as ‘Leaving? Do.’ And ‘Bigger vision’ (guilty as charged on that one, sorry). Thankfully, and for reasons unknown, we were spared this gallery of rogues.

So, on to the awards; and it’s at this point that I would like to say thank you to Sir Tim Berners Lee, founding father of the Internet. You see, IMHO, the Internet shook our industry back into life and we woke up kicking and screaming like Mia in Pulp Fiction after Vincent had slammed a shot of adrenaline into her heart. We were given a big dose of reality and our eyes opened to the fact that we had, for years, been media-led, when all along we should actually have been product-led. It was the signal for a paradigm shift in creative, a seed that sprouted slowly at first, as a channel, but heralded growth into such new areas as employer branding, content marketing, human-to-human and social conversations.

And this year, it was a pleasure to see the fine results of clients and agencies coming together to show just what can be achieved with this new-found freedom of expression. The breadth and quality of product was apparent in all categories and was virtually oozing out of the Work of the Year.

I’m pleased to say we had a little dance up on to the stage, too, picking up an award for a piece of work we created for our good friends Berwin Leighton Paisner.

So, it’s just left for me to say thanks to the RADs for showcasing some great examples of what’s great about our industry’s work today and thank you Internet for the shot in the arm.

http://www.tonic-agency.com

Another year, another RADs. But not just any RADs.

Last year’s RAD awards was a special night for us. It was the night that we won our first RAD award. Our #TweetShop created loads of buzz, great results and scooped the Best Ambient/Outdoor prize.

It was a special feeling for us all – and a fantastic way to round off our first year in business.

One year on and we’ve doubled in size. We’ve moved offices twice. And we’ve begun working with a whole host of new and exciting clients.

You can imagine, then, that we were thrilled to find out we’d been shortlisted for three awards this year. Two for our work with Tesco: Best Graduate Recruitment Campaign; and Best use of Mobile for our first-of-a-kind Snap It! on-campus innovation. And finally, Best Recruitment Literature for a new client of ours, Berwin Leighton Paisner.

Being the 25^th anniversary for the RADs guaranteed it would be a special night anyway. And we were hoping to make it extra special by picking up another award.

Well, we’re pleased to say we weren’t disappointed. And nor was our client.

Our work with Berwin Leighton Paisner to turn their graduate recruitment brochure into more of a story with a really human and conversational feel impressed the judges.

You can look at the brochure here.

It really was a great end to an even greater year.

Well done to all the shortlists and winners from the evening, and of course to our clients who’ve trusted us and provided us with the opportunity to deliver some exciting and creative work.

See you there next year.

Picture Time:

Tonic’s Executive Creative Director, Mark Horley, proudly receiving the Best Recruitment Literature award, along with Alan Demirkaya, the Graduate Recruitment and Trainee Manager at Berwin Leighton Paisner. The award was presented by our good friend Nick Francis, Creative Director of Casual Films

Here it is, the award in all its glory!

Thanks to the RAD Awards for making it a memorable achievement with this sticker placed outside our offices. Nice touch!

Sponsoring the RAD Awards

When we were approached to see if we’d like to sponsor a category at this years RAD Awards it didn’t take too much thinking about. Tonic, a little brand consultancy, sponsoring a category at the Oscars of the Recruitment industry? Yes, absolutely!

But, it had to be the right category. It had to align with our values and the work that we do. And that’s why we’ve chosen Employee Engagement. You see the bottom line for us is that the work that we do in building brand, articulating the things that make our clients special and executing the best candidate experiences we can, must continue into the experiences of the people hired, once they’re hired. It can’t just be about attraction.

If we can get the hiring bit right, and then make sure that those promises are fulfilled on we’ll be hiring advocates. People who will be positive about us, people who will deliver growth and profitability, people who will make the attraction of more new people easier in the future. Employee engagement is critical to the way that recruitment happens now and in the future. Can you tell that we’re passionate about it?

We can’t wait for the night. Not only are we short-listed for four awards in our own right, but we also get to celebrate with the winner when they’re announced. Exciting times.

Good luck then to Accenture and 106, HCA and Pink Squid, Manpower and Carve, Ovo and Aesop, and finally Sony Music and Blackbridge.

See one of you on the 30th January.