Branded3 are awarded with the highest accolade for having fun

We could not believe our luck when we were awarded the prestigious Grand Prix Award at the 2011 DADI Awards for having fun and following our passion for what we love to do.

Branded3 were awarded top honours at the ceremony on Friday, despite some very worthy contenders for the prize. I think I speak for the whole team when I say we feel very humbled.

What was already a wonderful night at Saviles Hall in Leeds, soon turned into a great night for the team when we won the award for In-house Website or Campaign for our site Twitition. Better still, we won the next award we were nominated for – Use of Social Media.

The whole team were ecstatic that our internal site had won two fantastic awards, and we thought the night couldn’t get any better. But it soon did – when it was announced that Branded3 had won the most prestigious award of all, the Grand Prix Award for our work on Twitition.

Twitition was an idea that our Director of Search, Patrick Altoft, had come up with one Sunday morning in 2009. I can still remember popping into the office at 9.30 a.m. to catch up on some work that Sunday, and finding Patrick already working on a prototype.

Seeing its potential, the team developed this petitioning platform led by our Head of Digital, Steve Shaw; and within just a few weeks, Twitition had over 150,000 followers. The simple idea and usability of the application caught the imagination of users and the site started snowballing with more and more users creating and signing petitions.

Twitition’s have been re-tweeted by the likes of Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber, and the fun and popular site has even been mentioned a few times by the BBC. Twitition was also used as a platform to petition for the freeing of the controversial Chinese artist, Ai Wei Wei.

With the growth in its popularity, we invested further with a renewed design and usability early 2010 when we had about 500,000 followers. Since the re-design and updated features, the site rapidly grew to have the 1.1 million followers it currently has.

The site is testament to the adage that the execution of an idea is more important than the idea itself. We have achieved a multi award-winning application in Twitition because we have great ideas and an excellent, committed, and passionate team.

The success of Twitition not only lies with the talent of our team here, but our passion to make a difference in digital, and we’re thrilled that something so successful can be the result of something fun.

Vin Chinnaraja