We’re proud to say that our PressArea solution for London’s Luton Airport (https://mediahub.london-luton.co.uk/) won the Gold Award for the “Best online newsroom” in the “Best use of digital to aid media relations” section at the Digital Impact Awards 2020 in March 2020.

The awards have been going since 2010, and the awards are recognised as the best in corporate digital communications and are judged by an impressive list of judges from all sectors and digital specialisms.

Our client London Luton Airport is one of the UK’s busiest airports and wanted its online newsroom to represent that. Their previous solution wasn’t giving them enough flexibility, uploading images/videos and release was complicated to do, plus there wasn’t a solution for press enquiries to be dealt with centrally, and they wanted to improve the way they shared information in the small press team.   

In just five weeks, we took all of their assets and data from their previous solution and uploaded it to PressArea and created a new press office that brought everything under one roof, streamlined processes and brought more structure to operations.

Press releases, images and videos are now easy to download in a one-stop shop, for both the media and London Luton Airports internal comms team, and the enquiries system allows the team at Luton to quickly and easily deal with press enquiries online and on the phone. The online enquiries reporting also allowed the team to see for the first time just how many queries they were dealing with, and to see how often videos/images/press releases were being downloaded.

We also created a media booking solution where news teams and anyone looking to use the airport terminals for filming, can quickly and easily put in requests and upload their filming requirements, schedules and public liability insurance documents. The Luton PR team can then quickly approve or turn-down the request and automatically issue approval certificates for the filming teams.

The judges for the awards included;

Ricardo Carvalho, VP of digital transformation, Fresenius Medical Care

Kristina Blissett, Head of communications, Coats

Karan Chadda, Digital communications manager, Ageas

Matt Evans, Head of digital operation, DRPG

Charlotte Borthwick, Digital communications manager, G4S

Joanna Bleasdale, Internal communications director, GVC

Andrea Gold, Head of digital and social media, Rolls-Royce

Michael Keating, Head of digital, Art Fund

Mark Frankel, Head of social media, Phillip Morris International

Hilary Knight, Digital director, Tate

Andy Gibbard, Global director of digital and brand, SGS

Paul Mallaghan, Director of creative strategy and content, We Are Tilt

Rav Punia, Digital director, Inmarsat

Karen McCabe, Digital communications manager, English National Opera

Pete Richardson, Digital manager, London Fire Brigade

Penny Mills, Head of digital, Smart Energy GB

Emma Shephard, Communications and digital director, Dogs Trust

Ryan Taylor, Head of digital, City University of London

Roeland van der Heiden, Director, digital communications, AstraZeneca

Pantelis Zoupas, Head of marketing communications and digital,Total UK

For more information on the awards see https://www.digitalimpactawards.com/europe/past-winners/2020/  with full details here https://www.digitalimpactawards.com/media/23030/dia-2020_winners-book_upload.pdf

Unfortunately, due to Covid regs we had to sit at home for the awards ceremony, otherwise you’d be able to see the PressArea team in all our finery celebrating the win. Perhaps that’s a good thing