2018 Winners

Grand   /   Gold   /   Silver   /   Bronze   


L'Oréal vs Laser
Beauty & Wellness
L'Oréal
McCann Melbourne

Case Summary
L’Oréal Revitalift is Australia’s leading anti-aging product range; however we discovered that Australia overtook America for per capita spending on cosmetic procedures. The truth is that our biggest competitor isn’t in the beauty category. To launch L’Oréal Revitalift Laser X3 we had to prove we could deliver the results our audience wanted without the pain and expense. We conducted a world-first comparison, on the same face. Laser on one side and L’Oréal on the other. The results were visible on our volunteer’s face and in record sales for L’Oréal Revitalift.


Share a Coke, Share a Code
Beverages Non-Alcohol
Coca-Cola China
McCann Worldgroup China

Case Summary
“Share A Coke” has been one of Coca-Cola’s most successful marketing platforms since 2011. But after half a decade, how do you keep an idea fresh and effective? Well. Coke China took the idea one step further. Instead of using the label to talk to Chinese teens, Coke China used their secret native language to allow teens to talk to each other. The campaign was a runaway success, driving unprecedented brand love and an actual +10% lift in volume—pretty remarkable for a brand as pervasive as Coca-Cola.


Tap for your Town
Financial Products & Services
Mastercard
McCann Sydney

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.


Shan Foods Thematic
Food
Shan Foods
Ogilvy & Mather Pakistan

Case Summary
How does a regional brand make itself big nationally?

This is the story of how Shan, a dominant player in food mixes in Pakistan’s Southern region, eschewed the conventions of food marketing (i.e. taste bringing families closer), to win over progressive women by taking on an issue of national interest. Elevating the role of food mixes to a bridge across cultural barriers, boosted its brand power ahead of the market leader, accelerating national sales by 17%, surpassing its annual target in half the time, and outgrowing the category by 10%.


The Hearing Test in Disguise
Healthcare
Cochlear
CHE Proximity

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.


Vodafone Free vs Quality
IT / Telco
Vodafone India
Ogilvy India

Case Summary
Vodafone India was faced with the daunting task of selling 4G, in a scenario where a new entrant JIO, was acquiring subscribers by giving 4G for free. Vodafone SuperNet 4G TM, The Data Strong Network TM, campaign got subscribers to focus on quality instead of free data. The campaign showed a real-life 70-year-old couple Asha and Bala, making the most their lives, on their 2nd honeymoon using Vodafone’s 4G services. This campaign helped increase usage of Vodafone 4G services and increased share of 4G subscribers, without using any freebies.


Let’s Create Viral ‘Products’!
New Product or Service
Saregama India
The Womb

Case Summary

This case is about how an agency partnered with a client to solve an almost terminal marketing problem, and through a disruptive idea, ‘CO-CREATED A VIRAL PRODUCT’. Which, within 6 months of its launch, created a significant new revenue stream and made the company’s share price climb 250%. Without a dollar spent on communications!


Valentine's Joy for the Heartbroken
Restaurants
Jollibee Foods Corporation
McCann Worldgroup Philippines

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.


Inspiring India's New Dreamers
Retail
Amazon Seller Services
Ogilvy India

Case Summary

This is a unique story of David & Goliath joining forces. A story of how Amazon inspired small-town Indians by creating India’s first small-town cricket team aspiring to compete on a national platform. ‘Chonkpur Cheetahs', though fictional, was a metaphor of all small-town Indian's dreaming big, encouraging them to break the barriers of their limited circumstances. With a little help from Amazon. The campaign helped Amazon achieve unprecedented growth in new customers (31%) and revenue (30%) from small-towns, plus boosted its market share by 4.5% points.


Getting Indians to #LiveThere
Travel / Tourism
Airbnb India
TBWA\India

Case Summary
In 2017, Airbnb – one of the world’s most disruptive travel companies – told people everywhere to stop travelling.

Facing local market pressures and a complex travel ecosystem, Airbnb in India rose above the category fray to call out the problem with travel and introduced itself as an antidote. It did so by identifying and profiling a tribe of travelers in culture and inspired behavior change in the larger ecosystem. By making a universal idea locally relevant through a connections strategy, it saw massive gains across its brand & business.


Life is an Opportunity
Asia Pacific Brands
Thai Life Insurance
Ogilvy & Mather Advertising Bangkok

Case Summary
Thai Life was experiencing an extinction crisis in insurance agents, which accounts for generating 90% of its total sales, as they are perceived as a job for the despairing. According to sales records of existing high performing agents, most of them were once underdogs with severe life scars. This campaign was developed to recruit prospects with “life scars” and give them the opportunity of life salvation to take care of other lives by signing up with Thai Life. The result was a hugely successful agent recruitment campaign in Thai Life’s history.


2degrees Data Hunt
Brand Experience - Services
2degrees Mobile
Special Group

Case Summary
Over the critical pre-Christmas retail period, New Zealand telco giants Spark and Vodafone outspent and outshouted 2degrees Mobile by more than 4:1. But in the face of this, 2degrees launched a marketing innovation campaign that exceeded every single aggressive target it was set. Data Hunt drove record engagement, reduced customer churn, and delivered new sign-ups and handset sales. It also reversed misconceptions of 2degrees’ network coverage, and established 2degrees’ leadership in the data space. And if that wasn’t enough, it delivered a truly impressive ROI of $9.93 for every dollar invested.


Viral Products Revitalise Brands
Brand Revitalisation
Saregama India
The Womb

Case Summary
Marketing history has rich stories about reversals in brand fortunes. Some happen through insightful new positionings, others through culture-shaping platforms, and some others through cutting-edge communications. But what if a stagnant brand has no monies to spend on fancy campaigns?

Simple. You create a product with such insight that it goes viral on its own.

We co-created Carvaan with our client. And Carvaan has grown Saregama discontinuously, and catapulted its share price by more than 250% within 6 months of launch. Carvaan has become India’s latest cultural phenomenon.


Last Laugh
Branded Content
Indian Association of Palliative Care
Medulla Communications

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. They were screened and trained by palliative care counsellors and India’s best stand-up comedians. These shows and its coverage became our campaign.


The Hearing Test In Disguise
Branded Content
Cochlear
CHE Proximity

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.


Making Shampoos an Office Supply
Business-to-Business
Unilever Japan
Asatsu-DK

Case Summary
Clear, a shampoo brand, faced a major problem speaking to men in Japan because most men do not care about what shampoo they use.

What Japanese men care about and prioritise over anything else was work. Clear decided to speak directly to their employers. Thus creating the world's first corporate scalp-care support program, re-contextualising one of the most classical FMCG products into a B2B offering.

This novel approach generated 108 million impressions and 30 major employers joined the plan, generating a record sales uplift of 171% over the previous year.


Circles.Life 20/20 Launch
David vs Goliath
Circles.Life
Supermarket Creatives

Case Summary
This is about how a small telco, Circles.Life, went from a newbie to mobile data hero. In Singapore, 3 telco giants have had a longtime stronghold, and that meant consumers had to accept expensive data offerings falling from 12GB to 4GB. Yet, consumers were hesitant about Circles.Life's better data offerings. We triggered consumers to question the status quo. Stirring a nationwide cry for more data, we then launched 20GB/$20. Within 2 months of launch, sales spiked at an all time high of 950%, cementing Circles.Life as the data game changer.


Made Possible By Melbourne
Media Innovation
University of Melbourne
McCann Melbourne

Case Summary
We had to publish research in a new and engaging way to increase research investment. We turned an entire city into an exhibition by showcasing world-changing research in re-imagined custom-designed outdoor media panels all connected by a free tram and then brought them to life with a mobile audio guide voiced by the researchers themselves. This interactive out-of-home experience allowed people to see what has been Made Possible by Melbourne and led to an increase in research enquiries.


India's Newest Status Symbol
Media Partnership Activation
Reckitt Benckiser
McCann Worldgroup India

Case Summary
While more than half of our population is still unaquainted with the building of toilets at home, this case is a working example of how the brand accelerated the adoption of toilets in rural India. We connected with and convinced the ones who understood the rational benefits but still hadn't built them.


Made Possible By Melbourne
Media Partnership Activation
University of Melbourne
McCann Melbourne

Case Summary
The University of Melbourne conducts world-changing research but the people of Melbourne didn’t know about it because research is typically published in journals.

We partnered with outdoor media suppliers and a production company to re-imagine traditional media to create a new way for the University to publish their work and show people what has been Made Possible by Melbourne. By turning the CBD into a free exhibition of the research, in this new medium that the people of Melbourne couldn’t miss, we increased enquires.


Breast Exam in Conservative India
Positive Change Social Good – Brands
Narayana Health
McCann Worldgroup India

Case Summary
India is staring at a breast cancer epidemic. 1 in 22 women in India have breast cancer and it has been predicted that by 2020, it will be 1 in 7! Self breast examination is a simple method to ensure timely detection. However, teaching this to women in rural India is a daunting socio-cultural challenge – discussing private body parts is strictly taboo and here, women are never unaccompanied, even on doctor visits. Our campaign ably taught rural Indian women the self breast exam without ruffling any sensitivities.


End Child Marriage Campaign
Positive Change Social Good – Non-Profit
UNICEF - Bangladesh
Asiatic Marketing Communications

Case Summary
The high prevalence of child marriages in Bangladesh (65% of girls were married before 18) in early 2017, is a barrier in achieving many SDGs. Together with the Bangladesh government, UNICEF initiated a program to eradicate child marriage by 2045. Asiatic MCL developed 5 TV spots, and broadcast and social media promotion plans together with UNICEF, the government and adolescent representatives. It achieved 13m engagement on social media in two months, generating nearly 60% in positive responses and has helped reduce child marriage by 47% by the end of the year.


Live Unboxed: Precision Marketing
Programmatic

Samsung Asia
J. Walter Thompson Singapore

Case Summary

The Smartphone category is a red ocean space with blurring differentiation. Galaxy S8’s post-launch campaign in Philippines was Samsung’s first-ever data-driven campaign, with precisely engineered content targeting diverse audiences to drive conversion. Moving beyond soft metrics like impressions and engagement, campaign success was evaluated strictly on intent-to-purchase.

This campaign had to work harder than generic brand-level communications. By baking data-driven segmentation and insights into the heart of the work, the campaign successfully demonstrated product relevance specific to individual needs, exceeding benchmarks by a phenomenal 30X on purchase intent.


Lamb: Celebrate Australia
Seasonal Marketing

Meat & Livestock Australia
The Monkeys

Case Summary
Lamb, the brand that stands for ‘Unity’, could no longer ignore the fact that the day Australians should be most united as a nation – Australia Day – was instead dividing us because it excluded Indigenous Australians.

Our solution was to celebrate everyone who makes Australia great, instead of the day itself. It became Lamb’s most talked about campaign ever, with over 1,400 pieces of earned media and a 23% sales uplift, proving the power of provocative thinking.


The Perfect Aussie Christmas
Seasonal Marketing
ALDI Australia
BMF

Case Summary

ALDI’s Perfect Aussie Christmas is a glorious cultural mirror to Australia’s franken-Christmas, where Northern and Southern Hemisphere rituals somehow make peace under sun-drenched mistletoe.

In 2016, we set out make Aussie’s proud of this unique version of Christmas.

Sales were up YOY by 28%, delivering an ROI of $1.88 at an enormous scale.


Tap for your Town
Shopper & e-Commerce Marketing
Mastercard
McCann Sydney

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.


Last Laugh
Small Budget - Services
Indian Association of Palliative Care
Medulla Communications

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 - screened and trained by palliative care counselors and India’s best comedians. With < $10,000 media budget, these shows, and its recordings became our campaign resulting in > $3 million earned media.


Tap for your Town
Social Media Marketing
Mastercard
McCann Sydney

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.


Made Possible By Melbourne
Sponsorship & Event Marketing
University of Melbourne
McCann Melbourne

Case Summary

The University of Melbourne conducts world-changing research but the people of Melbourne didn’t know about it because research is typically published in journals. We had to publish this research in a new and interactive way to increase research investment.

We turned an entire city into an exhibition by featuring world-changing research re-imagined in 14 traditional outdoor media panels and brought to life with a mobile audio guide. This allowed people to see what has been Made Possible by Melbourne and led to an increase in research enquiries.


The BIC 4 Colour World Champenship
Sponsorship & Event Marketing
BIC
McCann Melbourne

Case Summary

Pen usage is declining globally and BIC 4 Colour Pens last a really, really long time. Both are a problem for sales. Instead of a simple campaign, we created a highly engaging event. The BIC 4 Colour World Champenships: The ultimate (and only) pen based sporting event! Players competed in 14 new pen based sports including: Clicky-Clicky Fast Pen, Penathon and more. We provided the ultimate event, elevating sales beyond expectations, culminating with the final stage of the event series: the final heat of the Penathon, broadcast live on Facebook.


Berocca: From Big Nights to Big Days
Sustained Success
Bayer Australia
J. Walter Thompson Sydney

Case Summary

This is the story of reinvention, of how marketing communications saved Berocca, an iconic Australian brand from a slow but certain death. It shows how one simple, but compelling and strategically informed idea, turned the brand from a decline in frequency and sales to continuous growth over the last four years, delivering triple the target.


Dirt A Karmic Perspective
Sustained Success
Hindustan Unilever
Hindustan Unilever

Case Summary

Imagine being given an idea that has blazed a trail of success worldwide, then the shock when it fails miserably. That is what happened with Dirt is Good when it came to India. This is the story of how we reinterpreted a global idea with a deep local insight. We showed that Dirt is only good if it teaches children values. Not if it helps children play better or be childlike or learn. This reinterpretation has led Surf Excel to become HUL’s top brand, India’s most trusted laundry brand, helped affinity scores and business perform at their best levels.


Share a Coke, Share a Code
Youth Marketing
Coca-Cola China
McCann Worldgroup China

Case Summary

“Share A Coke” has been one of Coca-Cola’s most successful marketing platforms since 2011. But after half a decade, how do you keep an idea fresh and effective? Well. Coke China took the idea one step further. Instead of using the label to talk to Chinese teens, Coke China used their secret native language to allow teens to talk to each other. The campaign was a runaway success, driving unprecedented brand love and an actual +10% lift in volume—pretty remarkable for a brand as pervasive as Coca-Cola.