SOME of Huddersfield’s most innovative businesses took a bow at a major marketing event in the town.
Creativity, Commerce and You provided a showcase for the creative talents of established entrepreneurs and budding young business people who took to the “catwalk” at the Odeon Cinema alongside the Galpharm Stadium.
The celebration took place at the annual review of the Chartered Institute of Marketing’s Yorkshire branch.
Andrew Earnshaw, of Holmfirth-based marketing firm Up and Running is chairman of the branch this year.
The event also included a motivational talk by James Sommerville, director of award-winning design agency Attik, which was founded in the town.
Enterprising business people promoted at the event included Glen Paxman, developer of the Paxman scalp-cooling device used to reduce hair loss in cancer patients; Phil Mundy, of mobile phone games developer Creative North; and Huddersfield University student Sam Eccles, who has designed a flood defence device.
Other companies featured included steel sculpture business Steel Dreams, online graphics supply firm ID-Wall; mobile phones marketing company Message4it and M O’Donnell and Sons, which has developed a new surface for advertising.
They were joined by video specialist Virtual Huddersfield, insulating paint supplier Thermilate, fashion designers Toni Waller and Jamie Nelson, jewellery designers Frances Brown and Maria Lau, artist Gemma Nelson and women’s footwear designer Romilly Jane.
Mr Earnshaw said: “The object of this event is to encourage business people in the mid-Yorkshire area to think Šcreatively about marketing and how it links to business success, as well as to promote local creativity to all of mid-Yorkshire’s marketers.”
The event was organised by Huddersfield University final year marketing students Terrell Crossley, Harriett Sunderland, Charlotte Reid and Saran Kaur, with the help of senior lecturer Nadio Granata and Mr Earnshaw.
The catwalk session was supported by Leeds-based Bond Model Agency, which provided four professionals models, a make-up artist and a photographer; and Huddersfield hairdresser Mark Riley, who provided hair stylists for the evening.
The show also included dancers Jessica Woodhead and Clara Collett, of Calder High School at Mytholmroyd.
