easyJet named Sitecore Site of the Year UK for 2012

London – November 29th 2012 –Sitecore, a leading web content management and customer experience management software company, announced the winners of its Sitecore Site of the Year UK 2012 awards at a prestigious ceremony attended over 250 guests, held last night at the Paramount Bar on the 32^nd floor of Centre Point in London.

Sitecore received nominations from over forty Sitecore customers for this year’s awards, with all using Sitecore solutions implemented by some of the UK’s leading digital agencies.  These customers competed for Sitecore awards across nine vertical sector categories, from Education, Media and Advertising to Travel and Hospitality.  All entries were judged on the strength of their Sitecore solution to deliver bottom-line results and return on investment, as well as pushing the boundaries in terms of innovation, functionality and capability, ranging from mobile, social, multichannel engagement, and integration with other business systems.

Category: Education, Media and Advertising

Winner: City and Guilds (www.cityandguilds.com)

Agency Partner: Codehouse

Category: Entertainment and Leisure

Winner: wagamama (www.wagamama.com)

Agency Partner: WickedWeb

Category: Government and Public Sector

Winner: Scottish Water (www.scottishwater.co.uk)

Agency Partner: Eduserv

Category: Manufacturing, Automotive and Technology

Winner: Dyson (www.dyson.co.uk)

Agency Partner: True Clarity

Category: Not for profit 

Winner: Oxfam (www.oxfam.co.uk)

Agency Partner: Code Computerlove

Category: Professional, Business and Personal Services

Winner: Lewis Silkin (www.lewissilken.com)

Agency Partner: Reading Room

Category: Retail, Wholesale and Consumer Goods

Joint Winners: Royal Mint (www.royalmint.com) Furniture Village (www.furniturevillage.co.uk)

Agency Partners: Sequence (Royal Mint), True Digital (Furniture Village)

Category: Sports

Joint Winners: The Football Association (www.thefa.com) The Open Championship (www.theopen.com)

Agency Partner: Endava (The Open Championship)

Category: Travel and Hospitality

Winner: easyJet (www.easyjet.com)

Agency Partner: True Clarity

From these category winners, Sitecore judges picked an overall winner and named easyJet as this year’s Sitecore Site of the Year UK 2012.  easyJet uses Sitecore to deliver a personalised homepage to each visitor, with the site attracting almost 400 million visits a year.  Using search or GeoIP data, Sitecore dynamically personalises the easyJet home page to show flights from a visitor’s their nearest airport, plus imagery and content that appeals to their previous behaviours. The home page also shows live pricing for relevant flights from a local airport – showing easyJet’s low-cost credentials, and with a click – the visitor can add those flights to their basket.

Peter Duffy, marketing director, easyJet, commented on being awarded Sitecore Site of the Year:

“The Sitecore platform has delivered against our objectives driving greater agility, operational efficiency and enabling increased personalisation across easyjet.com.”

Twenty-one organisations also entered Sitecore UK’s first-ever ‘People’s Choice’ award, with members of the public voting on Sitecore UK’s Facebook page for their favourite Sitecore-powered site.  Over 4,000 votes were cast, and Royal Navy was crowned the ‘People’s Choice’ champion, attracting nearly 40% of all votes received, followed by Oxfam and The Open Championship.

Captain Mike Beardall, Royal Navy, commented on receiving the People’s Choice award:

“We are extremely proud to have received this prestigious award which acknowledges the investment the Royal Navy has made in its website in order to deliver a product that is easy to navigate and which acts to educate, inform and engage with the digital audience.

“To win this award was a fantastic achievement; we would like to thank those members of the public who voted for us.

 “As a large, diverse organisation, the Royal Navy has to keep on top of the digital environment and we will continue to listen to our users, take their advice and strive to meet their needs in future."

Laust Sondergaard, chairman, Sitecore UK, commented on the overall awards event:

“This year’s Sitecore Site of the Year UK awards has been our biggest and best so far.  The volume and the quality of the entries we received were exceptional, with our customers and agency partners using Sitecore at the heart of their digital marketing.  easyJet is very exciting and a worthy winner of our overall Site of the Year, using Sitecore to enhance the customer experience and to drive site conversions and sales.  I am also extremely encouraged to see the impact that implementing Sitecore has on the business and how this builds shareholder value.”

For our ‘People’s Choice’ award winner, our friends at the Royal Navy managed to get the public right behind their site and sailed to victory.  Their site is highly engaging and manages to reach out to the many audiences that the Royal Navy serves, including new recruits, sailors and their families and retired and ex-serviceman.”

About Sitecore:

Sitecore is a global software company that creates products to deliver the most relevant experience and content to customers at any moment of interaction and via any communications channel – the web, email, mobile, social and offline. Our customer experience management platform combines proven web content management with customer intelligence to create a single view of a customer that drives meaningful interactions, increases conversions and builds lifetime customers. Brands, including ASOS, British Red Cross, Brother, Cadbury, DVLA, Dyson, easyJet, E.ON, The FA, Heineken,  Kia Motors, Lloyds of London, Manchester United FC, Oxfam, Play.com, Virgin Active and Visa Europe rely on Sitecore to get and keep loyal customers who engage more and drive revenue growth.

Ends

Notes to editors

Picture shows easyJet receiving Sitecore Site of the Year 2012 award

First left: Andrew Davies, managing director - True Clarity

Centre: Laust Sondergaard, chairman, Sitecore UK presenting the award to Dominic Bentley, consultant project manager for easyJet

Media Contact:
Mark Doonan - Threepipe

020 7632 4822

mark.doonan@threepipe.co.uk