First winners of the DMA Customer Engagement Labs prize announced

A one-day pilot of the DMA’s immersive hackathon tackled a live brief from Hilton
to develop new and innovative ways of engaging with its customers

The DMA has successfully launched the pilot for its Customer Engagement Labs, an immersive one-day live hackathon. In partnership with Hilton, the day asked participants to develop new ways to generate awareness and engagement with the Hilton Honors App. The team of Colette Alderson from BJL Group, Guy Swam from XCM, Katie Stotter from Reading Room, Laurence Kraszewski from British Heart Foundation, Mark Spinks from Hilton, Tom Ovens from WorkBrands, and Una Faller-McCauley from Hilton won on the day and take home a £100 Hilton gift voucher each.

The team were one of three taking part in the Labs day, all responding to Hilton’s challenge. Their #HiltonMoments campaign was victorious thanks to their combination of clear insight, strong creative ideas and range of both short and long-term strategies. The campaign they proposed targeted both business and leisure travellers with nuanced understanding of the different customer journeys they may have, offering each the unique benefits of using the service in a variety of ways.

Rachel Aldighieri, MD of the DMA, said: “The best minds in our industry put excellent customer engagement at the forefront of what they do. Success lies in the fruitful collaboration between data experts, creative professionals and technology specialists being. We created the Customer Engagement Labs to offer a new approach. It gives brands and individuals the chance to learn without restrictions or silos. The Labs give participants an immersive, hands-on environment to test innovative ideas and forward-thinking solutions to real-life problems.”

Mark Thomas, Senior Director Marketing Operations at Hilton, said, “All the teams did a fantastic job in coming up with new ideas and there was much debate among the judges as to who should win. However, the winning shone through by really getting grips with the brief, understood the customer journey, came up with a great creative idea, and a range of strategies that could deliver for us now and in the future. They understood what the objective was, delivered an idea that solved it and presented it all with aplomb.”

The Customer Engagement Labs will continue to encourage innovative, cross-discipline collaboration between data, technology and creative professionals, breaking down barriers to understanding and building successful customer engagement across channels. Future editions will work on more real client briefs and develop new ways to solve problems within the business through better customer engagement.