The Web Marketing Association is pleased to announce the winners of its twelfth annual WebAward Competition for Web site development. More than 2,400 sites from 45 countries were adjudicated in 96 industry categories during this year’s competition. Entries were judged on design, copy writing, innovation, content, interactivity, navigation, and use of technology.

A complete list of the winning sites can be found at the WebAward Web site at www.webaward.org.

Best of Show

The 2008 Best of Show WebAward is presented to Trailer Park for their exceptional work on Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix website. The site was also awarded Best Movie WebAward.

Trailer Park created a fast loading website as mystical, magical and visually stunning as the movie itself. Aesthetically, the all-Flash site transports users into a dark, smoldering world of wizards and monsters via brilliant images, ominous music, and crisp, clean layouts. Three engaging games, Duel with the Death Eaters, Room of Requirement,and Thestrial Flight, immerse users in interactive challenges based on elements from the film. Downloads like, wallpapers, MySpace skins, banners, and buddy icons give fans a way to express their Harry Potter enthusiasm.

Top Agency

Risdall Advertising Agency was named Top Agency at the 2008 WebAward Competition, taking home 29 awards – the most ever by a single agency in a WebAward competition. The Top Agency Award is given to recognize the consistently outstanding development going on at interactive firms. Risdall, headquartered in New Brighton, Minnesota, took home Best B2B Website, 4 Outstanding WebAwards and 24 Standard of Excellence WebAwards.

Agencies or companies winning five or more WebAwards in 2008 include:

Agency – # of awards
Risdall Advertising Agency 29
Biggs|Gilmore 20
Avenue A | Razorfish 16
Walt Disney 16
TravelCLICK, Inc. 16
VML 14
Hubbard One 12
TMP Worldwide 12
AGENDA (H.K.) Limited 11
Arc Worldwide 11
Tribal DDB Worldwide 11
Bridge Worldwide 10
JWT INSIDE 10
Digitas Health 9
Disney Channel 9
Euro RSCG 4D 9
Zugara 9
BrowserMedia 8
E-site Marketing 8
Blenderbox Inc 7
Cendyn 7
Ektron 7
Hitchcock Fleming & Associates Inc. 7
Sapient 7
USA Network 7
Weber Shandwick 7
WSI 7
Acsys 6
Azavar Technologies 6
bbdigital (Blattner Brunner) 6
Boston Interactive 6
Greater Than One 6
MRM Worldwide 6
RED Interactive Agency 6
RFI Studios 6
Starwood Hotels & Resorts 6
180 Interactive 5
Airfoil Public Relations 5
Aristotle Interactive 5
Atmosphere BBDO 5
BGT Partners 5
Brulant, Inc. 5
Cartoon Network 5
Cheil Communications America 5
Emakina 5
Extractable 5
G2 Interactive 5
Hunt & Gather 5
Larsen 5
Milestone 5
Thomson-FindLaw 5
TIG Global 5
usdm.net(R) 5
Valassis 5
Web Associates 5

Competition format

The competition was judged by a team of independent Internet professionals representing a variety of relevant disciplines of Web site development. Judges included members of the media, advertising executives, site designers, creative directors, corporate marketing executives, content providers and webmasters.

The WebAward competition format allows Web sites to compete head to head with other sites within their industry to win the Best of Industry award. Entries also compete against a standard of excellence to win Outstanding Website and Standard of Excellence WebAwards. Each site is judged on seven different criteria and earns a score between 0 and 70 points. The highest score in a given category wins Best of Industry for that category. If the remaining entries receive a score of 60 or greater, they receive the Outstanding Web site award. Entries that score higher than their industry average and below 59.9 receive the Standard of Excellence.

The 2008 WebAwards are sponsored by the following leading organizations: Burst Media, PRWeb, Misukanis & Odden, B2B Magazine, AllBusiness, Small Army, ExactTarget, ad:tech conferences, eComXpo, MediaPost’s OMMA conference, , Microsoft Silverlight, Snap.com, Internet World UK, Search Engine Strategies, Webmaster Radio, Rovion and Website Magazine. The Web Marketing Association thanks all of its sponsors for helping to make this annual competition possible.

About the Web Marketing Association

The Web Marketing Association is working to create a high standard of excellence for Web site development and marketing on the Internet. Staffed by volunteers, it is made up of Internet marketing, advertising, PR and design professionals who share an interest in improving the quality of Website development and marketing on the Internet. Since 1997, the Web Marketing Association’s annual WebAward Competition has been helping interactive professionals promote themselves, their companies, and their best work to the outside world. Now in its 12th year, the WebAward Competition has become the premier award event for Web developers and marketers worldwide.

If you are a nominator in the Web Marketing Association’s 2008 WebAwards, we would like you to know that the results have been posted in your nominator account for your review. The results will be released to the general public on September 16th – one week from today.

If you have won a WebAward this year, you may edit your entry information prior to public release of the results. The deadline for making these changes, if any, is September 15th at 5:00pm EST.

Thank you for your participation in this industry standards setting event.

You can sign in to your nominator account at http://www.webaward.org/nominator_default.asp

The winners of the 2008 WebAward Competition for Website Development will be announced September 16th on this website and to the media.

As in past years, nominators will receive results on September 9th in their nominator account and can begin to prepare their marketing efforts.

Just a quick update to let everyone know that the judging of the 2008 WebAwards is now complete and we are tabulating the winners in 96 categories. We will announce the winners in September.

The Call for Entries has been completed and the Judging of the Web Marketing Association’s WebAwards are well underway. Winners will be notified in September a week before the public announcement of winners.

Good luck to all who entered.

The Web Marketing Association has announced that the deadline for entering its 12th annual WebAward Competition has been extended until June 13th to allow final entries to be submitted and existing entries to be edited if needed.

While all entries submitted after the original May 31st deadline are subject to a late fee, you still have the opportunity to have you best Websites judged by the Web Marketing Association panel of experts and win glory and recognition for yourself, your company and the award-winning Website.

The final deadline is Friday, June 13th and this deadline will not be extended as the judging phase of the competition begins June 16th.

The WebAwards are the premier internet award competition that judges website development against an ever increasing Internet standard of excellence and against peer sites within an industry.

Today is the deadline for entering for 2008.

Entering is easy. If you have not already done so, you can create a Nominator Account or log in to an existing Nominator Account. Complete the entry form information and you site will be judged by our panel of Internet experts and be on its way to win the recognition you deserve.

Good luck to everyone who enters.

Some international participants of the WebAwards may find it easier to pay for their entry fees by sending a direct wire from their bank to the Web Marketing Association bank. If this is the case, please contact us for wire instructions.

It is important that you submit your entry prior to sending the wire and also emailing us your entry number when you have confirmed the wire has been sent. We have no way of matching the wired funds received by our bank with any entry until we receive your email notification.

Also note that there is a $25 USD wire fee to cover the fees we are charged by our bank.

Web sites that are not currently available online may be submitted via CD-ROM. Please complete the Online Entry Form available in a nominator account and in the URL field, enter “CD-ROM”.

Submit three copies of the site on CD-ROM with the entry number assigned by the online entry submission process on each disk. Send your CD-ROMs to:

Web Marketing Association
WebAwards Entry#
P.O. Box 249
W. Simsbury, CT 06092

Overnight packages can be sent to:

Web Marketing Association
WebAwards Entry#
7 Cedar Glen Road
W. Simsbury, CT 06092

We have received several emails from people who have nominated Websites for the WebAward competition and paid their entry fee, but the system reported that the payment was not showing up in the system.

This is caused when the final button is not clicked during the payment process. The Web Marketing Association uses a leading third party credit card processing gateway in order to protect the financial information of our award participants. If the final button is not clicked, the information is not passed from the card processor’s servers to our servers which results in our database not being updated.

If this happens to you, please email us a copy of your credit card receipt and we will use the information from that email to update your entry or entries.

The Web Marketing Association is accepting entries into the 2008 WebAward competition until May 31st. Just remember to complete the payment process by clicking the final button which takes you back to the WebAward Website.