Parsippany, NJ (April 11, 2003) Interactive Media Associates, Inc. (IMA), a leading Internet eCommerce planning, development and marketing services firm, today announced that it is a silver and bronze winner in the 2003 Summit Creative Awards® competition for its outstanding creative work for Mason Gross School of the Arts and for its own Web site, respectively.
As the arts conservatory of Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, Mason Gross School of the Arts is a professional school offering undergraduate and graduate degrees in music, theater arts, and visual arts, in addition to undergraduate degrees in dance. The school's mission is to identify and nurture outstanding creative talent, while instilling the insights and skills needed by future generations of arts professionals, enabling them to contribute to the creative and scholarly activity so essential to the vitality of our culture and society. The Web site, launched in September of this year, includes performance calendars, comprehensive admissions and course information, faculty directories, virtual "tours" of the campus, and art gallery and performance slide shows. The winning site can be viewed at www.masongross.rutgers.edu.
Scott Cagenello, Associate Dean at Mason Gross, said: "Receiving a Silver Award for the new Mason Gross School of the Arts Web site is a terrific honor, and reflects the commitment of the School and the University to extend the reach of Mason Gross to more diverse and global realms. The School thanks both Interactive Media Associates for its continuing support and dedication to this project, as well as the Summit Creative Awards Competition, for its recognition of our site."
The Interactive Media Associates Web site showcases the company's capabilities in design and creativity, database integration, and smart engineering. It is also a site that, in keeping with IMA's culture and eclectic client base, is fun to view and interact with. To accomplish these goals, IMA created a site almost entirely in Macromedia Flash, which contains in-depth information about the company's history, mission, services, and product line, as well as current news and a series of articles authored by the company's executive management. In addition, a password-protected Client Extranet was introduced, allowing clients to access work in progress, schedules, storyboards, specification documents, and links to administrative tools to maintain their live sites, all from one convenient location. The site takes full advantage of IMA's ReliaUpdate tool, allowing for quick and easy updating of materials, and facilitating the use of those materials as print collateral as well as web presentation.
Michelle Cameron, Creative Director at IMA, said, "We are honored to win the Bronze Award from the Summit Creative Competition, as a testament to our team's hard work in creating an outstanding promotional site. The business to business category we competed in is one of the toughest, and we feel this award is a strong indicator of the quality of this project."
The Summit Creative Awards is the only competition of its kind. It was created in 1994 to recognize exceptional work by advertising agencies, video production companies, multimedia firms and other creative groups with annual billings of $15 million or less. It is the only opportunity such firms have to compete internationally.
This year's panel of judges included Ilan Geva of CMYK & Beyond, Luc Chenier of Bates Ukraine, Rick Penn-Kraus of Hill and Knowlton, Kevin Hersh of Mfx, Inc., Steve O’Brien of Ground Zero, Henry Rasmussen of Scanad - Denmark and Daren Levis of J. Walter Thompson USA. Entries in 17 creative categories were judged against a stringent set of standards. Judges looked for innovative and creative concepts, strong executions and the ability to communicate and persuade.
This year's competition received approximately 3,000 entries from 17 countries including Australia, Canada, Croatia, Denmark, England, Estonia, Germany, India, Isreal, Italy, New Zealand, Northern Ireland, Puerto Rico, Russia, Singapore, Ukraine and United States.
Additional information about the Summit Creative Awards and a list of other winning firms can be found on the Summit Awards web site at summitawards.com.
More About Interactive Media Associates, Inc.
Interactive Media Associates, Inc. specializes in the planning, development and marketing of Internet services. The company provides expertise in areas including strategic consulting, business planning, service specifications, Web site design, applications development, database and eCommerce integration, and account management. And through its ReliaServe subsidiary, IMA also offers site hosting. IMA has client concentrations in the publishing, direct marketing, and entertainment fields, including companies such as IATSE Internation, Hackensack Medical Center, Getnick & Getnick, Editor & Publisher, New York City Ballet, The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey, The Juilliard School, Paper Mill Playhouse, Mason Gross School of the Arts, Xyting Corporation, The VectorSpace Group and Chatham Systems Group. For additional information, call (973) 539-5255.
