Spiders 2024 highlights digital excellence in a year of intense change

Pictured (L-R): Ricky Harris Annertech-bigO, Emma Conway National Library of Ireland, and Stella Power, Annertech-bigO

The Mansion House Dublin was a hub of excitement last Friday, 1st March, as digital leaders the length and breadth of Ireland joined in celebration of digital excellence.

The Spider Awards 2024, the 27th such iteration of the ceremony, took place on Friday, 1st March in the Round Room of the Mansion House, Dublin. 

The Spiders encompass everything to do with digital, ensuring a complete 360 approach to showcasing excellence across the spectrum.

This year saw the addition of two new exciting categories: the Cultural Driver Award and Sustainability Impact Award.

Partners for The Spiders include headline partner One4all, alongside Deloitte Digital, Magnet+, Skillnet Ireland, Centre for Excellence in Design NDA, Onclusive, UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School and Olytico.

Ceremony

The ceremony began with Tracey Carney, Managing Director of Catalyst Media Group, welcoming attendees and making note of One4All, the Spider Awards’ new headline partner.

She was promptly interrupted by Duncan Disorderly, DJ extraordinaire, and his troupe of dancers.

Duncan Disorderly is part of  THISISPOPBABY’s WAKE, a home-grown arena party showcasing the very best of contemporary Ireland. Wild acrobatics, trad-with-a-twist, searing hot circus and outrageous cabaret are promised in one ‘electric’ night out.

There was a 20 per cent increase in bookings this year compared to last. Despite snowfall earlier in the day, the Round Room was full.

Quoting Jaws, Ms. Carney said: “I think next year we might just need a bigger boat.”

Lou Hickey, Director of Marketing EMEA, One4All, was invited to speak. She noted that when the Spiders first took place, “search engines were in their infancy, Google was literally a baby with MSN toddling along after it, while Yahoo was leading the charge like a slightly older sibling. Nearly three decades later and how things have changed!”

Pictured: Kevin Johnson, Deloitte Digital, Paul Baguley, Brown Thomas, Sarah Esler, Brown Thomas, and Ruari Mitchell Deloitte Digital. Deloitte Digital won the award for Best App, sponsored by Onclusive, for their work with Brown Thomas at the Spider Awards, Ireland’s premier celebration of digital excellence.

Category Partners

Ms. Carney made reference to partners of certain awards categories.

They included the Centre for Excellence in Universal Design, who supported the Best in Universal Design category, Skillnet Ireland, who sponsored the Best Use of Disruptive Technology, and Magnet Plus, who sponsored the Digital for Good category. Deloitte Digital supported the Best Brand category.

Ms. Carney mentioned the UCD Smurfit Graduate Business School: “Each year at Catalyst media”, she said, “we sponsor a MBA Scholarship Business graduate through our Business & Finance Programme.

“If you are thinking of doing a Master’s, why not apply for a fully-funded scholarship and connect with the team at Smurfit Business school.”

Ms. Carney thanked Olytico, the Spiders’ social listening and online media monitoring partner – who ensured all coverage across social through our #Spiders24 was captured. 

She also thanked Annmarie Sheehan at Aspire PR, the event’s PR partner who, “if you are lucky enough to win an award will want to know where your mother was born to make sure you get coverage in every paper in the county.”

Winners

Claire Smith, UI Designer at website design and development platform Kooba said she was “ecstatic” the company won in the Best Website – Large Company category for work with Payslip.

Lorg Media won Best in Social Media for its work with TG4 on its on-the-ground coverage for Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann 2024. 

Loretta Ní Ghabháin, Managing Director at Lorg Media, commented: “We’ve worked with TG4 since 2017, promoting Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann, and this year we were down there creating short-form turnaround content on the ground at Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann.

“Our team created the ambience that was on the ground, with half a million people in Mullingar for the second year in a row. It was absolutely amazing and the atmosphere was palpable, and I think the judges agreed that they could feel it through our content.”

Pictured: Rob Carpenter, Tamara Reis and Luciano Jacob from Granite. Granite won the award for Large Agency of the Year sponsored by Catalyst Media at the Spider Awards.

Annertech and bigO won both Best in Universal Design and the Grand Prix Award for their collaboration on building a new website for the National Library of Ireland.

Stella Power, Managing Director of Annertech called the win “amazing”, noting that the Spiders are “the Oscars of digital awards.”

Square1 won Best UX & Customer Experience for its work with ePaper. Ciarán Maher, CEO and co-founder, stated that it was “exciting to be a part of Spiders history.”

Unicef

Owen Buckley, Head of Corporate Partnerships at UNICEF, spoke to attendees in a sombre address, noting the “the humanitarian crisis to which the eyes of the world are turned right now” in Gaza.

He continued: “Gaza has been recognised by UNICEF as the most dangerous place in the world to be a child at the present time. Colleagues who have returned from the region have described the ‘triple threat; to children’s lives; the relentless bombardment we see on our screens each day and increasingly, the disease and malnutrition spreading across the strip after almost five months of war

“I would like to just for a moment recognise my colleagues on the ground in Gaza who continue to stand, deliver, innovate and recalibrate in response to an ever-changing, unprecedentedly challenging situation, and their unwavering commitment to Gaza’s one million children, whose lives have been changed utterly by this devastating war.

“I would also like to recognise the compassion, dedication and generosity of the Irish public and business community alike as we continue to navigate this crisis.”

History of the Spiders

The Spider Awards is the longest running digital awards programme in Ireland. 2024 marked the 27th iteration of the annual awards ceremony.

A number of digital luminaries were recognised at last year’s awards including Granite, who won the Large Agency of the Year and An Post who won Best App.

The event sets out to recognise and encourage digital creativity as the awards continue to adapt to a changing society.

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