Brainshark Announces 2010 Sharkie Award Winners, Recognizing Excellence in the Use of Multimedia for Business Communications

WALTHAM, Mass., March 18 /PRNewswire/ -- Brainshark, Inc., the leader in on-demand presentations, today announced the winners of the second annual Sharkie Awards. These awards honor individuals and organizations that demonstrated excellence in their use of multimedia for business communications – thereby engaging and delivering value to their audience.

With Brainshark's Web-based platform, organizations and individuals can easily create, share and track voice-enriched, multimedia presentations – helping to improve communications reach and efficiency, while reducing the costs associated with travel, print and Web conferencing. Brainshark presentations have been viewed more than 25 million times – with one Brainshark viewed every five seconds, and one created every four minutes.

Brainshark received more than 100 entries for consideration in this year's awards. A new category was added to recognize users of myBrainshark – the free version of Brainshark's software available at www.mybrainshark.com. Entries were evaluated on clarity, conciseness and compelling nature, and on how well they leveraged Brainshark's capabilities – including the ability to incorporate video, surveys and polls, attachments and more within presentations.

Winning and finalist presentations can be viewed at www.brainshark.com/gallery. The 2010 winners, listed by category, are as follows:

Brainshark of the Year and Category Winner for Corporate Communications – Internal

Aviva

"Aviva Tone of Voice"

Corporate Communications – External

Ohio National Financial Services

"Life Changes. We'll Be There."

Marketing

Corporate Visions

"The Power of Story: How to Tell a Story That Sells"

Training – Internal

American Express

"Drive Your Success"

Training – External

Allstate

"Your Choice Motorcycle"

Foreign Language

Nippon Life Benefits

"Introducing Nippon Life Benefits"

Open Category

Allianz Global Investors

"Three Key Reasons to Consider"

myBrainshark – Learning Provider

Michaels & Associates

"Accelerated Learning: The Extreme Training Makeover"

myBrainshark

user DanielleD

"The Best Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe"

Best Podcast

Ken Okel

"How to Shush a Loud Cell Phone Talker"

Best Pre-Loader

Torchmark

"Pre-loader: Torchmark Corporation"

Best First Brainshark Presentation

SunTrust Banks, Inc.

"Health Savings Accounts"

"As one of the world's largest insurance companies, it's important that we're able to quickly and easily educate our global audience and secure internal alignment around new initiatives," said Francesca Raban, group communications manager, Aviva. "Brainshark enables us to do this in a low-cost, high-impact manner – with catchy, multimedia elements and convenient on-demand viewing. Our 'Tone of Voice' presentation really got employees engaged and aware of new brand positioning, and we're thrilled by this recognition from Brainshark."

To participate in the awards program, organizations and individuals submitted links to Brainshark presentations they created in 2009. Co-sponsors of the awards program include Premiere Global Services; Customer 1st Performance, LLC; InterCall; Webinar Resources; Corporate Visions Inc.; Webinar Success; eSlide and 1080 Group.

"We're excited to recognize this year's Sharkie Awards winners, who exemplify how to use multimedia to improve the reach and results of their communications," said Brainshark CEO Joe Gustafson. "Brainshark solutions make it easy for organizations to maximize viewer engagement, boost productivity and cut costs. This year's winners were particularly adept at communicating with impact and drove home the value of on-demand presentations."

For more information on the Sharkie Awards and to view a Brainshark presentation honoring the winners, please see http://www.brainshark.com/gallery/vu?pi=226916189.

About Brainshark, Inc.

Brainshark is the leader in on-demand presentations, transforming static business content into high-impact communications. Delivered via Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), Brainshark enables audiences to access and engage with business content when and how they want. More than 1,100 companies – including a third of the Fortune 100 – rely on Brainshark software and services to help sales, marketing, training and HR experts cost-effectively deliver measurable results. In addition, organizations and individuals use the myBrainshark site to create, share and track publicly available multimedia presentations for free. For more information on these offerings, visit www.brainshark.com.

SOURCE Brainshark, Inc.