21.10.09: Fascinating Ewards09 judging day
Autotorq's Clive Jackson, left, chats to Motoring.co.uk's Chris Green
NERVOUS doesn’t come close to the apprehension I felt over today’s event. It was judging day for the Car Dealer Ewards 09, and I was worried in the extreme.
Why the sweaty palms and heart palpitations? Well, it was nothing to do with too much coffee this time, and more to do with chairing the expert panel of judges.
Gathered at headline sponsor Autotorq’s Fulham HQ, were nine judges of this year’s Ewards who included:
Clive Jackson, founder of Autotorq.com and its parent Global Beach
Stewart Niblock, chief operating officer of Autotorq.com
Daniel Burgess, automotive director of HPI
Tim Smith, marketing director of G-Forces
Martin Hill, director at Codeweavers
Keith Rountree, marketing manager of BCA
Richard Lawton, marketing director of Really Good Domains
Shaun Armstrong, MD of visitcars.co.uk and Credit Plus
Chris Green, sales director of Motoring.co.uk
Unfortunately Black Horse and Compucars couldn’t make the event. But this was still a large proportion of the great and the good when it comes to online motoring website experts.
If a bomb had gone off in the room, the motoring retailing web world would certainly have taken a dramatic step back, that’s for sure!
Judging for the Franchised, Independent, Car Supermarket and Car Manufacturer categories were already in before the event – so the discussions were dedicated to our choices for the Web Innovation gong.
Each judge had five minutes to argue for their nomination as we checked out the sites on the big screen in the Autotorq boardroom.
The picks were fascinating and it was great to hear the judges’ reasons for choosing the sites they did.
Tim Smith, left, of G-forces and Codeweavers' Martin Hill
After all of us had put our points across – and I’d argued for those who weren’t able to make it – we all allocated our points on ballot forms, sealed them and I’ll work out who’s won later this week!
HOT TOPIC
We then moved on to a round table discussion, which was truly fascinating. The general topic being what the judges thought the future holds for car dealers online.
This will make a piece in a future issue, so I won’t spoil it, but what was quite clear was the fact that, when it comes to the web, nothing is clear!
Where will Google go next? How will dealers tackle customers accessing information on their mobile phones? And is there a need for dealers to be into social media? All were debated with vigour.
Next month, we’ll reveal our Eward winners and then the following issue report on our judges’ thoughts on the future of the web.
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James
More on the Ewards 09 in association with Autotorq.com can be found here
Tags: ewards