Monarch Airlines named as Sitecore Site of the Year UK 2013

London – 6^th December 2013 – Sitecore, the global leader in customer experience management software, announced the winners of its annual Sitecore Site of the Year UK awards at its awards party last night, attended by over 250 guests and held at Fabric in London.

Now, in its sixth year, Sitecore Site of the Year 2013 continues to recognise the leading companies who use Sitecore to create amazing experiences for every customer that engages with their brand across every channel. Sitecore’s experience platform combines best-in-class web content management with marketing automation, email marketing, social media, e-commerce, optimisation, and analytics into a single, unified solution. As in previous years, the 2013 award winners relied on Sitecore’s software to drive web campaigns and digital marketing strategies to meet business goals, representing excellence across verticals and business applications.

This year’s awards featured a record number of categories, with Sitecore customers and solution partners battling over a total of nineteen awards.  This included five new marketing specialist categories, three business results categories, the People’s Choice award voted by the public and the overall Sitecore Site of the Year UK Award. Monarch Airlines took the coveted Sitecore Site of the Year 2013 UK award, with international law firm Bird & Bird securing the public vote to win the Sitecore People’s Choice Award.  Click here to read more about each of the winners.

Sites entered were judged on their innovative use of Sitecore’s experience platform (CEP), examining a range of areas including customer experience management, personalisation, multichannel capability, integration with other business systems and the effect that the Sitecore solution has had on business performance.

Leading international law firm Bird & Bird claimed this year’s Sitecore UK People’s Choice award after receiving the most votes for their site compared to twelve other competing websites vying for votes in a competition hosted on the Sitecore UK Facebook page.  Bird & Bird’s site (www.twobirds.com) received 27% of the total public vote.

Keith Hardie, head of marketing communication, Bird & Bird commented:

"Thank you to everyone who voted for us. We were thrilled with the support we received. Along with the fact we have doubled the number of enquiries to the website, we feel this award shows that our new website is at the cutting edge of web design, and that we have firmly established ourselves as one of the law firms leading thinking in that area. That is particularly important for Bird & Bird as we focus on helping clients in industries affected by disruptive technologies and our lawyers are passionate about the way in which great websites can contribute to a business's success."

HSBC won two awards; the Best Financial Services Website award, and the Business Transformation award for their website www.hsbc.com. HSBC won the new transformation award in recognition of how the bank is using Sitecore solutions to transform the approach to its digital properties, to reflect the dynamic, global nature of the bank.

Charles Bell, global chief technology officer, HeathWallace, commented:

“Winning this award is a very proud moment for us at HeathWallace. Our relationship with HSBC goes back many years and if one project outlines the close relationship between our two companies it is this one. The opportunity to work on such a high-profile project with the bank was a great honour and it was great to work with all of their in-house development team with whom we share this prestigious award.”

The overall Sitecore Site of the Year UK 2013 award was presented to Monarch Airlines, who collected a total of three awards on the night, also adding Best Travel and Hospitality Website, and Best Sitecore Digital Marketing System (DMS) deployment/integration.  Monarch Airlines won the award for their use of Sitecore to deliver a personalised experience through its website to five million visitors each month.  Monarch has also increased sales conversions and average passenger spend per seat through its new website.  

Luke Donnebaum, website manager, Monarch Airlines, commented:

“We’re delighted to have been recognised with these awards. We wanted to make sure we used Sitecore’s capabilities to their fullest and these awards are testimony to the hard work and effort put in by both ourselves and our development partner, Codehouse, over the past year.”

Simon Etherington, managing director, Sitecore UK, commented:

“The quality of our annual Sitecore awards continues to rise as our customers and partners keep on pushing the potential of Sitecore’s experience platform.  We congratulate all of our winning partners and customers.  What is also great to see is our customers winning awards for the evolution of their Sitecore solution, clearly demonstrating that the Sitecore platform offers the long term stability and vision for leading brands to continue to grow their businesses.”

-Ends-

Notes to editors:

The Monarch Airlines team are pictured with their Sitecore Solution partner Codehouse, together with Jeff Thomas, chief marketing officer, Sitecore and Simon Etherington, managing director, Sitecore UK.

Media contacts:

Simon Bennett, Content and Communications Manager, Sitecore UK

Tel: 0203 327 0633 Email: sib@sitecore.net

About Sitecore

Sitecore is the global leader in customer experience management software. Sitecore delivers highly relevant content and personalised digital experiences that delight audiences, increase loyalty and drive revenue. With Sitecore’s experience platform, marketers can own the experience of every customer that engages with their brand across every channel. More than 3,500 of the world’s leading brands including ASOS, Dyson, The FA, Manchester City FC and Virgin Active trust Sitecore to help them deliver the meaningful interactions that win customers for life. For more information, visit www.sitecore.net