September 29, 2017 by Matt
The launch of an account based marketing business (SourceSelect) that scaled to seven figures in revenue in less than a year, reduced reliance on traditional digital advertising revenue and helped “turn dumb leads into smart leads” earned SourceMedia the overall People’s Choice Award at the first-ever Connectiv Innovation Festival last night in New York. The event brought together more than 100 of B2B’s best and brightest to celebrate cutting-edge strategies, product launches and cultural transformations helping reinvent the business media and information industry.
Marcus Witte (pictured from event), vice president of integrated marketing, represented SourceMedia in an entertaining round robin in which 17 Connectiv Innovation Award category winners vied for the top People’s Choice Award. Each winner delivered lively, three-minute recaps of their entries, followed by a grilling from judges Kip McDaniel, chief content officer and editorial director at Institutional Investor, and Kevin Novak, founder and CEO of 2040 Digital. Attendees then voted via text for the People’s Choice Award.
Two specialty award winners were also revealed last night—Alex Butler, vice president and general manager of the Bloomberg Legal Division, was named Most Disruptive Innovator, for revolutionizing the way his team of data scientists, journalists, and editors approached Bloomberg Law’s Corporate, IP, and Privacy product offerings. Butler chose to sunset dozens of legacy products to create staff bandwidth to deliver significant content builds to the Bloomberg Law platform, blending editorial and technological innovation. He elevated the skillset of the editorial team and integrated a new data scientist and analytics role. Bloomberg’s Privacy & Data Security product revenue by nearly 100 percent in 2016 in 2016.
TechTarget was named Most Innovative Company for blending editorial excellence and technological innovation, including the delivery of B2B enterprise technology purchase intent on both an account and contact level through its Priority Engine platform, which is fueled by the company’s depth of content and audience of 200 million annual visitors—96 percent of whom come from organic inbound research—across 10,000 IT topics. TechTarget stresses that instead of a “designated innovator” within the company, every voice should be heard, and hosts its own internal innovation awards in which each department is represented, with 10-15 finalists recognized each year and one winner taking home the grand prize.
The 17 individual category winners include,
Retaining Top Talent
Revitalizing Workplace Culture
Leveraging Ecosystem Partners
Retooling the Business Model
- Randall-Reilly, RigDig Business Intelligence
Delivering a Dynamic Experience
- Reed Tech Navigator for Medical Devices
Creating a New Revenue Stream
Matt Kinsman is vice president of content + programming at Connectiv, the only association focused on the integrated b-to-b model—including publications, events, digital media, marketing services and business information. Prior to joining Connectiv's predecessor American Business Media in 2011, Kinsman was executive editor of Folio:, the leading information provider for the magazine industry.