Amsterdam, 11th November 2015
iambassador, the leader in innovative travel blogger and social media campaigns, is proud to have won the Travel Media Innovative Campaign and Content of the Year 2015 Award for the #LoveSabah campaign at the Travel Media Awards. The awards ceremony took place at the stately St. Pancras Renaissance Hotel in London on 9th November 2015.
The #LoveSabah campaign, a partnership between iambassador, Sabah Tourism, Royal Brunei Airlines and Good Relations PR, saw six world-leading travel, lifestyle and wedding bloggers visit Kota Kinabalu and Brunei with Royal Brunei Airlines in November 2014 to create awareness of the Malaysian state of Sabah as a weddings and honeymoon destination. The bloggers shared their experiences in real time via social media, driving engagement and awareness of Sabah’s great diversity of attractions. In the following months, a wide array of online content was produced, including 35 blog posts and videos, photos, a cinematic quality video and an ebook. The campaign generated 52 million opportunities-to-see across Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and Google+ in a period of two months (source: Brandseye.com).
The winning team: (left to right) Terry Lee (iambassador), Adiel Mambara (Royal Brunei Airlines), Matt Robshaw (Good Relations PR), Sarah Lee (iambassador), Keith Jenkins (iambassador) and Kash Bhattacharya (Budget Traveller, winner of the Best Blogger 2015 Award and iambassador).
Keith Jenkins, CEO of iambassador, said, “I’m very excited and proud to have won this award. This marks another milestone in collaborative efforts between digital influencers, brands and DMOs. The #LoveSabah team, headed by our UK Director, Sarah Lee, showed exceptional teamwork to produce quality, engaging content about the airline and destination, and we’re honoured that this has been recognised by the tourism press and marketing industry in the UK. A big thank you goes to our partners Royal Brunei Airlines, Sabah Tourism and Good Relations PR, the #LoveSabah team as well as the broader iambassador and Traveldudes networks for supporting this campaign.”
Sarah Lee, Director UK at iambassador, said, “I’m very proud to have organised and led such a dedicated team of professional bloggers and digital influencers. Once again we have driven huge bookings for our clients through compelling content and large scale brand awareness – the holy grail of marketing.”
The #LoveSabah team included bloggers Sarah & Terry Lee of LiveShareTravel, Niamh Shields of Eat Like A Girl, Becky Padmore of Global Grasshopper, Abigail King of Inside the Travel Lab, and Elizabeth Muhmood Kane of Bridal Musings, as well as videographers Nicolas Libersalle and Lea Amiel of Story Travelers, supported by the broader iambassador team.
The #LoveSabah campaign is the second collaboration between iambassador and Royal Brunei Airlines and Good Relations PR after the successful #MelbourneTouring campaign in 2013 with Tourism Victoria. Royal Brunei Airlines is about to embark on its third iambassador campaign, this time partnered with Ras Al Khaimah, in the United Arab Emirates, from December 1st 2015.
In addition to the Travel Media Innovative Campaign and Content of the Year 2015 Award, iambassador team member, Kash Bhattacharya won the Blogger of the Year 2015 Award with his blog Budget Traveller.
About the Travel Media Awards
The Travel Media Awards are a new press awards celebrating the very best of the travel media sector. The awards were created in recognition of the hugely influential role that today’s travel media play in the holiday or business travel decision-making process.
Open to all travel writers, broadcasters and photographers, the Awards are importantly not aligned to any Association or Guild, resulting in no barriers to entry. As such the Travel Media Awards will be a true barometer of the travel media sector. Submissions will be judged by some of the UK’s most influential travel industry figures alongside leading travel writers and editors.
Categories cover a wide range of disciplines and media, from national newspaper travel sections, with separate categories for tabloid and broadsheets, consumer travel magazines, both national and regional, travel trade titles, the increasingly influential travel blogging sector and travel guide books to list just a few.
See the full list of award recipients here.
