Polaris Media has won the Professional Services Business of the Year Award at the Mersey Maritime Industry Awards 2020.
Ben Pinnington, Rita Hunt and Rich Morris from the Polaris team accepted the award at a ceremony attended by 500 people at St George’s Hall in Liverpool. Polaris won following a public vote and a judging panel process after being shortlisted with well-known corporate companies global marine surveyors Brookes Bell and national accountancy firm Haines Watts.
Polaris managing director Ben Pinnington thanked all who voted for Polaris.
“2019 was a strong year for the company,” he said. “We expanded our services and team and grew turnover by 10pc. We also diversified into branding, creative design, brochures, websites, company films and business development to bolster our core publicity offering. But fundamentally we grew because we stayed true to our entreprenerial values of caring about our clients and working hard. This is the culmination of many years work to reach this point. Starting as a small business with local only client base we have cultivated Polaris over ten years so we can win work nationally and internationally. We are very grateful to the judges and everyone who voted for us and who choose to recognise enterprise and a boutique smaller business.”
Ben thanked the Polaris team and clients for their support.
“A business is only as good as its team and we are lucky to have very talented people with us making our strongest ever team,” he said. “We also thank our clients for investing in us including long-term clients Cammell Laird, Roxtec and Morris & Spottiswood. We further worked on some brilliant projects in 2019 including promoting the Port of Gdansk’s official delegation to Singapore marking 50-years of diplomatic ties between Poland and Singapore, the British Pavilion at Marintec China’s biggest shipbuilding fair, as well as the Maritime Forum Gdynia one of Poland’s prime maritime thought-leadership events. It was also brilliant to have a team of six work on the Royal naming of the Sir David Attenborough polar ship at Cammell Laird where we provided PR, social media, photography and film as well as producing the official brochure. We further undertook work with Indian owned Manchester based Hero Cycles, Southampton’s Griffon Hoverwork, Liverpool’s Battle of the Atlantic Memorial campaign and with Polish-UK ship repair company Intermarine.”
Polaris celebrated the win with its nominated charity Liverpool Seafarers Centre which won the Positive Impact award for its work supporting 50,000 seafarers visiting the Port of Liverpool each year. Polaris provides a range of pro-bono marketing services to LSC.