2018 Winners

Case Summary
CEAT, India’s 2nd largest tyre manufacturer, had to grow volumes despite 3 key challenges – cheaper Chinese imports, lack of racing credentials/associations and lack of manufacturer (OEM) tie-ups. Market leader MRF dominated the OEM market and had strong racing credentials. To grow, CEAT built a strong association with safety via the ‘It Helps’ platform, by highlighting the stopping power of CEAT tyres and championing initiatives to make Indian roads safer. The ‘It Helps’ campaign built CEAT’s association with safety-related functional product attributes, leading to an increase in volumes.

Case Summary
As a new and unknown entry-level car brand in India, Datsun redi-GO needed a compelling voice, given that its competition was a well-established leader with over 30 years of dominance in the automotive category. We decided to connect with Young Risers with the self-belief of not accepting the world the way it is. To motivate this audience, the campaign showed the middle finger to the codes of auto industry advertising. Instead, it instigated them to #VoteForChange by initiating the world's first ever car election campaign.

Case Summary
Dove is about beauty diversity. Women globally connect this to looks and body shape. We applied the real beauty philosophy to haircare in China. It has never been done before in the Dove world. The results drove the vital e-commerce channel, brand affinity and brand perceptions. Chinese Millennials are raised in an educational climate that views cutting-edge hairstyles as a “negative social influence”. Dove applauded the individuals who broke out of “hair stereotypes”, celebrating them for expressing their individuality in a nation that doesn’t always applaud this trait.

Case Summary

DB Export is a mainstream beer. Unfortunately, mainstream beer is in decline in New Zealand. To save it, traditional beer advertising clichés weren’t going to be enough.

In 2015, DB Export launched its new platform, Made By Doing (MBD) with the most successful marketing initiative in its history – Brewtroleum.

In 2017, we followed it up with another world first, Beer Bottle Sand. Enabling our drinkers to turn beer bottles back into sand for construction use.

Another audacious idea that saw DB Export Gold sales increase 9.7% in a declining category.

Case Summary

Milo’s consumption was stagnant, while other high-spending milk brands had started attacking the “energy” position. Milo needed to grow beyond its product story and stand for the true brand value: Sports as a great teacher for kid’s life success. However, Vietnamese moms thought sports were irrelevant to their kids’ future achievement. Instead of inserting sports as an add-on to its nutrition communication, Milo dedicatedly showed how sports could help kids become real champions in life. The campaign helped Milo grow again and become a much more relevant brand.

Case Summary

#ReleaseThePressure, a movement that not only gave a playful brand like Mirinda a deep purpose, but also gave millions of teens a platform to begin an honest conversation with their parents about the immense exam pressure they are under.

In our commitment to bringing the issue of parental pressure out in the open, we used creative ways of reaching out to kids and parents. Apart from traditional media, we converted unconventional media such as bottle caps, bottle labels, and even study notebooks into mediums of brand activism and change.

Case Summary

This case demonstrates how the power of an experiential idea backed by a tremendous product that delivers, went a long way in influencing market dynamics.

An extraordinary event built around the power of HP’s new laptop - the SpectreX360, a partnership with Vice media, Creative Technologists and a DJ, reinvented how one experienced computing in an unimaginable way. This changed how Aussie millennials perceived the brand and ultimately translated into hard metrics like sales and market leadership.

Case Summary
Consumer preference and market volume of imported products in the food and beverage category increased competition for local brands. Domestic cheese products also suffered particularly with the price barrier and consumer preference. Fewer consumers look for imported cheese, therefore Seoul Dairy, the largest and oldest dairy company in South Korea, felt the responsibility to lead the domestic cheese market by providing consumers with high-quality offerings and a unique taste that is well-harmonized with local food. Mokjang Nadeuli, Seoul Dairy’s Cheese brand, attempted to shift this fashion by executing Grill Grill Cheese campaign.

Case Summary

If you are familiar with China, the words ‘food advertising in China has to be rational; it should demo the product and show the origin’, will ring frustratingly true to you.

Well, this case of a humble/struggling Ice Cream named Nestlé “Chengzhen” (Meaning: “Real”) debunked this theory and literally turned the category conversation on its head by embracing ‘irrationality’, reversing a 3-year negative growth, to deliver +16% in a year when the Ice Cream category itself grew around 4.5%.

Case Summary
This is a story about how a laundry brand, caught napping by the speed of premiumisation, woke up and leapfrogged its way to leadership. By allowing the agency to conceptualise a new kind of fragrance and market it in a ground-breaking way, Molto fabric conditioner moved from laundry cupboards to women’s handbags and from supermarket aisles to Sephora’s shelves. This sweet-smelling growth engine has already generated an incremental EUR 5.2 million, raised brand perception scores to its highest level ever, and probably really annoyed Dior parfumiers when it pushed them to number two.

Case Summary

This case is about the value of not targeting your target audience.

We recognised that when it comes to approving an enterprise’s technology solution, it may be the CTO or CIO signing the contract, but their decision is influenced by the opinion of people who aren’t experts - let alone even employed - in the field. So, in 2017, we threw the B2B marketing rulebook out, and spoke to consumers.

By improving the perception of IBM amongst the non-buying general public, we dramatically increased our performance amongst business buyers.

Case Summary

Uniqlo’s kids field was trailing other companies in familiarity, understanding, and image, despite the strength of its adult field in the midst of a market battle for kids brand share. We created an experience for kids and their parents, who understood the quality and value of Uniqlo clothing, that was deployed as a store service nationwide. By providing a personal development opportunity for kids, we successfully branded the kids brand in-line with Uniqlo’s aims on a limited budget.

Case Summary

Nike wants to have its KD9 Shoes become China’s fastest selling basketball shoe. And they want NBA superstar Kevin Durant’s China tour to be impressive. We found that Kevin is not only good at basketball, but also good at playing a nationally popular game NBA2K online. Therefore, we came up with the idea of a national basketball game tournament to have all players fighting for a chance to play with Kevin. Through this reinvented Athlete tour, we maximized Kevin’s exposure and achieved Nike’s sales target.

Case Summary

When we fly, cabin pressure and altitude dulls our palate by up to 30%. Some airlines adapt food to this environment, but not the world’s favourite alcoholic beverage. So we created the world’s first ever beer that was scientifically crafted to taste best at 35,000 feet. The global conversation started by our beer has created a whole new world of interest and demand for the Cathay Pacific travel experience. The campaign resulted in 83% of customers saying Betsy differentiated the Cathay experience and 74% of customers saying Betsy enhanced the Cathay experience.

Case Summary

Creating the follow up to Brewtroleum, the most successful marketing campaign in DB Export’s history, was always going to be daunting.

In 2017, that was our task.

We created another world first – Beer Bottle Sand. Enabling our drinkers to turn beer bottles back into sand for construction use.

This idea further cemented DB Export, with its platform Made By Doing (MBD), as the brand that helps guys turn ideas into action.

It saved beaches around New Zealand and saw DB Export Gold sales increase by 9.7% in a declining category.

Case Summary

Football is the world’s game. But not in Australia. We were struggling to get traction amongst consumers with strong loyalty to their existing sports code of choice. That was, until we found a way to convert the passion kids had for the game at a grassroots level into Hyundai A-League fandom.

Our campaign united all of our clubs, selling the league through 115+ pieces of bespoke content; achieving an ROI of $1.25; generating the biggest broadcast deal in the sport’s history; and most importantly, created a new legacy of Football.

Case Summary

In 2015, DB Export launched its new platform, Made By Doing (MBD), with an audacious idea: Brewtroleum.

In 2017, we needed to further cement DB Export as the brand that helps guys turn ideas into action.

After discovering that there’s a global sand shortage, we created another world first, Beer Bottle Sand. Enabling our drinkers to turn beer bottles back into sand for construction use.

The more beer kiwis drank, the more sand they produced and the more beaches they saved, while DB Export Gold sales increased 9.7% in a declining category.

Case Summary

IAPC’s Last Words campaign in 2016 created awareness for palliative care. But in India, talking about death is taboo, so even the terminally ill, their doctors and families don’t talk about death, let alone palliative care. In this environment, the terminally ill performed stand-up comedy about death for their families, doctors and a paying audience to break this taboo, creating a one-of-a-kind experience for the audience. These shows and its recordings became our campaign.

Case Summary
If you are familiar with China, the words ‘food advertising in China has to be rational; it should demo the product and show the origin’, will ring frustratingly true to you. Well, this case of a humble/struggling Ice Cream named Nestlé “Chengzhen” (Meaning: “Real”) debunked this theory and literally turned the category conversation on its head by embracing ‘irrationality’, reversing a 3-year negative growth, to deliver +16% in a year when the Ice Cream category itself grew around 4.5%.

Case Summary

Bank of Queensland is a regional player in a sector dominated by four big banks. We were charged with attracting more small businesses to BOQ despite a small market share, in a challenging environment where banks are facing significant consumer cynicism, and a perception that no bank understood the pressures facing SME owners. Campaign success was driven by a credible consumer insight that resonated with business prospects and was truly ownable, generating $1 billion in business lending, including the two largest business lending settlement weeks in bank history.

Case Summary

This case demonstrates how the power of an experiential idea backed by a tremendous product that delivers, went a long way in influencing market dynamics.

An extraordinary event built around the power of HP’s new laptop - the SpectreX360, a partnership with Vice media, Creative Technologists and a DJ, reinvented how one experienced computing in an unimaginable way. This changed how Aussie millennials perceived the brand and ultimately translated into hard metrics like sales and market leadership.

Case Summary

This entry demonstrates how a challenger brand can take on a dominant category leader and win with a budget of only 50,000. It did so via a deep psychological understanding of a complex and traumatised target audience; those giving birth to premature babies. It harnessed new technology to reduce their grief and guilt in a way that was creative, and truly beneficial. Outspent 14:1 by Huggies, the Premmie Proud initiative increased sales by 13% and market share by 14%, as well as created a positive effect on the BabyLove Masterbrand.

Case Summary

As a new and unknown entry-level car brand in India, Datsun redi-GO needed a compelling voice, given that its competition was a well-established leader with over 30 years of dominance in the automotive category. We decided to connect with Young Risers with the self-belief of not accepting the world the way it is. To motivate this audience, the campaign showed the middle finger to the codes of auto industry advertising. Instead, it instigated them to #VoteForChange by initiating the world's first ever car election campaign.

Case Summary

KFC strikes to connect with the young generation through gaming, as gaming is an important strategy pillar for the fast food giant. Working with Onmyoji, the most popular role-play game in China, KFC brings value to the fans of the game by turning 5,000 KFC stores into real battle playgrounds. 3 million buckets were sold out in 3 days, with sales of theme stores increased 400-500% during the campaign period. And the collaboration cost KFC 0 budget as the developers truly feel that the collaboration adds value to the game.

Case Summary

The Philippines is the 3rd largest contributor of plastic waste in the world’s oceans. Greenpeace wanted to urge officials to stop plastic pollution. On 11 May 2017, during the ASEAN Summit on Coastal and Marine Development, we unveiled a 73-ft decomposing blue whale on the shores of one of the most polluted cities in the country. People discovered that it was made entirely of plastics. With a total of 1.6 BILLION impressions in over 100 countries, the Dead Whale succeeded in urging ASEAN leaders to include the Coastal and Marine Protection bid in a proposal for the next ASEAN Summit.

Case Summary

How do you get a group of ego-driven, defiant, reckless drivers, who are immune to the consequences of speeding, to start thinking about their behaviour on the road? This campaign found a new way to connect with this impenetrable audience by creatively taking away what mattered most to them – their freedom. Our innovative creative idea, real-time media approach and unique influencer strategy saw unprecedented engagement for a Government campaign, got 40% of our boys rethinking how they drive and reduced the number of speeding fines by c.30,000.

Case Summary

Post-It® Notes and Scotch® Tape might be household names, but 3M - What is that? For years, 3M has been helping us solve problems in simple, surprising ways – they provided us with life hacks before the term was even created. We set out to teach the internet a lesson (or two) on solving problems. Introducing: 3M Life Hacks, our highly targeted media strategy which drove e-commerce landings by +4100% and gave 3M a 12.4% uplift in sales amongst all of their products.

Case Summary

Jollibee is the Philippines’ leading fast food restaurant. Except on Valentine’s. Because Jollibee is not top-of-mind for a romantic meal. Neither is it associated with the season.

So, how do we get Filipinos to visit Jollibee during Valentine’s? While everyone was celebrating romance, we found an irresistible reason for people to crave the comfort of fast food – heartbreak.

The result? Jollibee’s best Valentine’s ever. Sales of featured products soared and store sales tripled.

Case Summary

For years, Neutrogena Hydro Boost struggled in Taiwan. The product had not changed in 10 years, and sales were in consecutive decline. With no product innovation, we had to completely innovate how we communicated or risk going totally obsolete. In a category where distribution channels were limited to drugstores and e-commerce and communications were limited to push media, Hydro Boost became the first moisturizer that used real-time data to push out offers during contextually relevant moments, triggering urgency to purchase online and offline, achieving a 66% sales uplift.

Case Summary

Jollibee is the Philippines’ leading fast food restaurant. Except on Valentine’s. Because Jollibee is not top-of-mind for a romantic meal. Neither is it associated with the season.

So, how do we get Filipinos to visit Jollibee during Valentine’s? While everyone was celebrating romance, we found an irresistible reason for people to crave the comfort of fast food – heartbreak.

The result? Jollibee’s best Valentine’s ever. Sales of featured products soared and store sales tripled.

Case Summary

Due to perception, poaching is being solved and elephants are therefore being saved from extinction,. However, David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust's donations dropped significantly. It sought to reignite passion to save elephants by bringing to life their hidden humanity and creating awareness about the human-conflict threat. Hello in Elephant is the world's first human-elephant translator – part utility, part donation generator. Launched on World Elephant Day, this idea changed the conversation and people’s connection with a well-worn cause. It went global, garnering 400m impressions and USD$6.53m in earned media. Importantly donations rose 34%.

Case Summary

Problem:

Australia is in the midst of a silent epidemic; 3.5 million people are living with some form of hearing loss. However, many are in denial about their hearing loss or don’t know how bad it is. Our task was to get those in denial to recognise they have a problem and take action.

Solution:

We created a hearing test, in disguise.

A short film that has two different endings, depending on the viewer’s hearing ability.

Results:

Exceeded KPIs:

Tested over 134,300 Australians' hearing.

Generated 2,499 highly engaged, high-value leads.

Case Summary

In India, talking about sex openly is taboo. This makes buying condoms in public an embarrassing task. Durex created innovative packaging - a soft sachet that slips into the pocket - and called it "Jeans". Our tongue-in-cheek PR campaign "Durex gets into denims" got India and the whole world guessing. We trolled ourselves and led real-time interaction on a raging topic that set the net on fire with highly engaging conversations on sex and condoms. This led to a turnaround of category growth from -2% to 15%.

Case Summary

In 2017, McDonald’s Gaokao campaign turned the notoriously difficult and serious Gaokao (China’s National College Entrance Exam) into a chirpy and lighthearted social movement.

While other brands tend to target the 9.7 million students who take Gaokao, McDonald’s also talked to the 217 million past Gaokao examinees (a market 22 times larger!) with mechanisms that enable them to re-live their Gaokao memories – thereby igniting the nation’s unspoken empathy for Gaokao students and eliciting precious goodwill for McDonald’s.

The result - a 400% increase in sales for the hero product.

Case Summary

This is the story of how Mastercard changed the habit of a nation by getting them to use contactless payments and to Tap For Their Town. It is a story of a campaign that drove increases in transactions in 63 of 66 towns in New Zealand, and encouraged more than 40 000 people to tap their cards for the first time. All this just to bring living-legend Richie McCaw out of retirement for one more game of footy in their town.

Case Summary

Three years of Pure Potential - a textbook case study in sustained success: This is the story of Smirnoff's highly successful ‘Pure Potential’ multi-level marketing campaign that launched in 2014. It has returned the brand to health and is still driving success in 2017. In a market increasingly characterised by short-term promotional activity, it is a textbook example of Long-Term Marketing Excellence. It’s also recognised by Lion as one of its most successful brand programmes, delivering remarkable commercial results, and entering its fourth year.

Case Summary

The sales of Snickers’ main product - the single bar - had been in decline due to the gradual loss of its core audience, especially Japanese teenagers. To recover them, we launched the “#HUNGEREPLY” campaign in conjunction with repackaging it as a Hunger Bar, and established a platform where young people could participate on Twitter and satisfy their craving for recognition by receiving a special reply from popular anime idols.

The popularity of the campaign, and renewed relevance of Snickers generated an upswing of 23-28% in sales.

Case Summary

Surf Excel stands for ‘Dirt is Good’ – Ramazan is a holy month symbolising purity. This is a story of how we linked dirt to the holy month of Ramzan. More importantly, this was the second year in a row we were doing it. We had to up the ante by bridging the gap between faith and dirt, once again. This is the story of how Surf Excel made consumers of Islamic faith fall in love with the brand in South Asia during Ramazan … yet again.