We’re pleased to congratulate a number of our customers who have been nominated for The 2010 Racie Awards, which will be announced during a gala reception at The Retail Innovation & Marketing Conference on March 3.

These honors are broken into several categories of pioneering marketing initiatives from traditional print and online advertising to the creative use of motion design and social commerce. According to the Racie Award site, “this year’s competition was stiff, with a 42 percent increase in entries over last year,” so we’re impressed that six of our customers made the list of nominees.

Customers in the running for these notable awards are: AT&T (with our partner, Sapient, as the agency of note), Best Buy, CVS/pharmacy, JCPenney Company, Inc.,  Tommy Hilfiger and OfficeMax. We’ve often expressed our pride that the brands selecting ATG are among the smartest and most creative when it comes to finding innovative and engaging ways to connect with their customers, so it’s great to see our friends getting some well-deserved kudos for the impactful marketing campaigns they’ve executed in recent months.

In fact, we’re particularly thrilled to be recognized for our work to deliver the Tommy Hilfiger iPhone app, which was nominated under the Racie Awards’ new “Mobile Apps,” category. You can read more about this project in our earlier blog post or by reading the app launch press release.

We wish you all the best of luck and we look forward to seeing you and toasting to your success in the year ahead at the Racie Awards Reception & Dinner Gala!

How do you define social commerce? Has social media made selling products online easier or more complex? With shoppers now empowered and more influenced by what they hear from their friends or family through social media than by an advertisement, how have merchants’ selling strategies been impacted?

I’ve just started a social commerce series on the ATG Community where I’ll look at how this social revolution and virtual collaboration is giving rise to new software/SaaS solutions to help merchants better engage with consumers. Head on over and give it a read.