MONDAY 29 JUL 2013 2:31 PM

STARGAZING IN CENTRAL LONDON

At most communications awards events, the winner goes home with a trophy or certificate or a bottle of bubbly. At VMA Group’s inaugural Rising Stars event last night, the five winners took home a more personal accolade – a star named in their honour.

The five young communicators who were named the industry’s Rising Stars in four categories spoke of their teams’ hard work, their mentors’ help and the opportunities their companies had provided them in allowing them to achieve the honour. The judges spoke of each winner with esteem.

The programme was designed to profile the up and comers in the communications industry in four key areas: digital, marketing, internal comms and agency comms. Entries were nominated by their peers and judged by a panel of practitioners and VMA staff.

The dual winners in the internal comms category were chosen because the judges could not determine which entry was stronger. All the winners were named to have made a constructive difference within their organisations. Digital judge, Comms2Point0’s Darren Caveney says of the winner of the digital award, senior web relations manager for Barclaycard Richard Atkinson, “Richard has radically improved Barclaycard’s customer service model through engaging the online community around the brand.”

There were over 100 nominations across the four categories and VMA plans to extend the programme into 2014 with more disciplines included.