Wellington's Click Suite Scoops Interactive Media

Wellington's Click Suite scooped the awards last night at the 1999 Interactive Media New Zealand Icon Awards, taking first place in five categories, including the Most Popular Application Award and the Excellence In Craft Award. The Awards recognise and encourage excellence in the interactive media industry.

Click Suite's winning entries were TACTICS (produced in association with Learning Media) winning two sections and the Inland Revenue Call Centre Training CD ROM.

TACTICS (Telecom's America's Cup 2000 Interactive Challenge Service) is a software game that allows players to build a yacht then race it against people from all around the world.

The game is structured to be a simple and fun educative tool, and uses a cartoon-type format.

"The software, which you download off the internet, was designed as a teaching tool for secondary schools, however with the advent of the America's Cup and the growing interest in sailing the site is now open to the public," said Click Suite Director, Emily Loughman.

The Inland Revenue CD Rom is an educative interactive media package. It was designed to provide a multi-media tool as part of Inland Revenue's induction course for new call centre staff.

"It introduces new staff to the Department and provides an introduction to specific tax areas. The CD Rom provides the basis for staff to become familiar with specific tax areas after their induction," said Ms Loughman.

The INZ ICON Awards are held every year and consistently attract high calibre entries.

"The use of the internet is growing explosively. So much interest was shown in last year's event and entries that this year we are staging a free exhibition displaying the work of all Award finalists," said Chris Lipscombe, Spokesperson for the Awards organising committee.

The entries will be on display at (e)-vision, corner of Blair and Wakefield Streets, Wellington until 6pm, 13 November.

The Awards feature entries ranging from top corporates to a Tauranga primary school. Categories cover Education, Marketing Communications, Art/Experimental, Recreation/Consumer, and for the first time Information/reference and E-Business sections. A special award was also made on the night for excellence in craft and most popular application. TACTICS won both of these awards.

The winners of each category were:

Education - online Click Suite and Learning Media – TACTICS

Originally designed for secondary school students, TACTICS allows the general public to learn to sail (and race) an America's Cup yacht. It is designed to make sailing accessible for novice sailors, while still reflecting some of the complexity of the sport. Having completed a number of races, users should feel like they know a bit about this sailing lark, and have a new appreciation of the races happening on the Hauraki Gulf - it'll create a new breed of armchair critics.

TACTICS is an application that is downloaded from the Internet, and then used from your desktop. It uses the internet in the background allowing you to save your boat, check today's weather, race other sailors (in real time) and have your winning scores shown on the leaderboard.

Education - interactive Click Suite - Inland Revenue Call Centre Training

This interactive module is part of a six week induction course for new Inland Revenue Call Centre operators (CRS). It is designed to provide a general introduction to the Department, and specifically to the different types of tax and tax customers.

After the interactive training the CSRs go on to specialise in particular tax areas during the remainder of their course. This provides a foundation of knowledge on which they build later.

Marketing Communications - promotional online APL Digital - MILK Photographic Competition

M.I.L.K is a project conceived by Hodder Moa Beckett. The project is a new international publishing programme centered around a major global photographic competition that runs from April 5th to September 31st 1999, from which M.I.L.K will derive 300 photographs to form the basis of the publishing programme to translate into books, calendars, diaries, greeting cards, wrapping paper etc.

Marketing Communications - promotional interactive Trimble Navigation NZ Ltd - Trimble Land Survey products

The Trimble Land Survey Products CD is an overview of Trimble's land survey product line. Its objective is to promote Trimble as a complete provider with innovative, open solutions that make the job easier. The CD educates customers on how they can accomplish a range of tasks, using hands-on demonstration, testimonials, and technology overviews in a friendly and professional presentation.

Art/Experimental George, Stephen Rood - Identity and Digital Media

This CD-Rom is an animated photograph album assembled from collected images to create the identity of a fictitious person called George. Produced and submitted as a thesis for a Master of Arts degree, it is a research into the photographic portrait and its integration into digital media. A dissertation is also presented on the CD-Rom, in an interactive form. This project explores the idea that identity is not what we may choose to be, but how we may choose to portray it.

Recreation/Consumer Click Suite and Learning Media - TACTICS As described in education – online

Information/Reference AC Nielsen - PRRADS Online

PRRADS has been recognised as New Zealand's media and advertising Bible for more than 10 years. PRRADS is an acronym for Press Research Rates and Advertising data Service. Originally this was produced as a book, and later as a monthly set of diskettes. PRRADS is used by Advertising agencies to plan and book advertising schedules; and by media owners to track competition.

Based on extensive research with users, they decided to move from a diskette - based service to the Internet as an extranet application. Firstly, because users wanted the system to be updated more than once a month, and secondly the ability to access data on Macs and PCs. The Internet offered the opportunity to achieve this and much more.

E-Business sections Terabyte Interactive - Rodd & Gunn Online Store

The key objective of the Rodd & Gunn on-line store was to launch the brand internationally targeting the US and UK lifestyle clothing markets. With a very strong brand presence strongly reflecting the New Zealand lifestyle already established in their bricks and mortar stores, the initial focus of the site was translating these brand values into a e-commerce solution. The on-line store features over 100 clothing products and accessories and takes all major credit cards.

ENDS....

© Scoop Media