BlueNotes is brand site of the year

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ANZ’s BlueNotes has won its first award, after being named Brand Site of the Year at the BEfest 2014 Awards at Sydney’s Luna Park on Thursday in front of a who’s who of the content marketing industry.

"On top of this award, we’ve broken through our annual target of 80,000 unique views and secured over 2,000 external newsletter subscribers."
Paul Edwards, Head of corporate communications, ANZ

BlueNotes, ANZ’s digital publication for news, opinion and insight, was named the winner ahead of other industry heavyweights including King Content, General Electric and Tourism Tasmania.

ANZ head of corporate communications Paul Edwards said the award, for the best website, blog or newsroom, was fantastic recognition of the hard work put in by the bank and its staff since its launch in April this year.

“When we came up with the idea and name, BlueNotes was an extension of ANZ’s highly credible insight series, with ANZ the ‘blue’ bank, while ‘notes’ was a less formal form of traditional bank comms,” he said.

“The site launched less than six months after conception, offering exactly the sort of credible content stakeholders wanted across business, economics, leadership, sustainability, technology, innovation and ANZ itself, with material from ANZ and external experts.

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Tim Burrowes, Amanda Gome, Jennifer Farmer and Andrew Cornell

“On top of this award, we’ve broken through our annual target of 80,000 unique views and secured over 2,000 external newsletter subscribers, most of whom are from the key audience segments of business, investors, regulators or policy makers and academics.”

Managing Editor Andrew Cornell said the win was a reflection of the quality of the site’s newsroom.

“BlueNotes delivers a new form of quality journalism and is regularly republished or cited in traditional media,” he said.

“Our content is increasingly used as a launch point for other media, it is seen as an authoritative voice on ANZ itself, interviews with executives regularly cited in the investment community. Our external content comes from some of the region’s best business journalists and prominent business and policy experts.”

Group Head of Strategic Content Amanda Gome said it was great for the site to be recognised.

“Bluenotes is one of the first websites of its kind in the world,“ she said. "The site is getting a lot of attention in the content publishing arena for its original reporting and bold initiatives, which include launching band extension such as Bluenotes Debates.”