The Big Chip Awards last night proved very satisfactory for Manchester digital agency 11 Out Of 10, which came away with the title for “Best Use of Search” for its work with Pure Gym.

For Artisan this is the third winner in a row it has worked with to gain recognition at the Big Chips.

In 2010 it was 11 Out Of 10 with Pure Gym again for “Best E-Business Project” and the year before “Best Green Chip Award” for server hosting company Melbourne.

If you jump a year to 2007, it was Jamie Clouting at PushOn, for “Best Rising Star.”

The awards, the biggest outside the capital, attract well over 250 entries – the numbers have been going up significantly in recent years and this year I believe the number was nearer to 300 agencies, companies and public organisations submitting their work for examination.

For certain categories, such as “Best Use of Search” and “Best E-Business Project” the competition is especially intense.

So to have specifically targeted key awards – one each year for the past three years – and to have won all three is quite some achievement.

The value to clients is hard to calculate in terms of pounds and pence, but if you weigh up using the accolade of being a winner of a well-regarded industry award on an agency or company’s literature (including website), social media, for PR and in pitches to lend greater credibility, then its value must be well above the time and money invested, even by the meanest of calculations.

If this has a typo in it, it is owing to my support of the French wine industry last night.

The Big Chip 11 is the set piece event for the North West digital media sector.  This year the event was held at Manchester’s Palace Hotel, and was well attended by agencies, in-house digital departments and interested parties.

The Big Chip used to be an award ceremony that everyone took part in and Code Computerlove won.

Well this year it won again but was joined by Love and New Concept Gaming Limited in the victory stakes.  Other notable wins, as I know the guys well, were Simon Wharton and his motley crew PushOn who picked up Best Use of Search and Melbourne who won The Big Green Chip Award and AdInsight with Best Newcomer.

The effort this year, the push behind the awards, was to get the sector revitalised, to generate interest outside the sector as well.

Manchester Digital, the body behind the awards, feels that the North West can compete with London agencies.  Shaun Fensom who is chairman of Manchester Digital opened the evening by saying that agencies in the North West have a collaborationist outlook, success isn’t just measured by how many pitches you win – the sector up here is as talented as anything else in the UK.

With this in mind Simon Wharton, supported by many contributions, used blogs, Twitter (#Big Chip 11) and any other social media techniques he could think of to push the message home.

The event was a success, no doubt.  I think it was going to be anyway, but the effort in promoting the event to act as a catalyst for the industry being viewed as a more recognised and integral part of the business scene is the interesting issue.

Whether this is the start of something new will be decided in the coming months, if the sector maintains the momentum.  It is up to the efforts of digital media professionals as well as Manchester Digital.

Whatever the conclusion, Big Chip 11 shows the digital media industry in the North West is vital.

Too tired to proof again.

The Big Chip Evening held last night was a sign of the intent of Manchester Digital to up its game.

Some 50 digital professionals and interested parties lent their support and attendance despite an unfortunate clash with Social Media Cafe and a very unwelcoming night to venture out in.

With the Big Chip Awards looming Manchester Digital wants not only an enthusiastic response to its call for entries, but to generate enough revenue from the awards to ensure that as fuller programme of events are run throughout the year for members.

Simon Wharton of PushON has been at the vanguard of getting the message out that Manchester Digital can only be as strong as its members’ input.  Simon has been putting in work on a Big Chip Awards Blog to create a buzz, which will be feed by contributions from members as well as conversation from Twitter – join BigChipAwards.

Shaun Fensom opened the event with a few inside tips on entry submissions although I think he could have been a little more forthcoming; the main piece of advice I recollect is answer the questions.  Come on Shaun. Shaun was also featured in Tuesday’s Manchester Evening News with a nice piece placed by SKV.

It really is up to members to generate the voice that will promote the interests of the industry to the wider business community.  It looks like a sea change forced through by members such as Simon and Shaun might bring that to fruition.