2019 Winners

Case Summary

By treating ‘Over Beer?’ as a big culturally-provocative idea, not just a bumper sticker, Canadian Club became the catalyst for all Australians to question the unquestionable: is it time to ditch our cultural commitment to beer?

By asking ‘The Big Question’, Canadian Club took it to a whole new level, leaving the category in its dust – achieving an incremental +$35M value sales uplift year-on-year, growing drinkers at 3-times the category, delivering an ROI of $3.12 in incremental profit for every marketing dollar spent.

Case Summary
This is the story of “rebirth” – about rebuilding and regaining the growth for a declining business. Ever since 2015, MILO Powder’s long-term future was in question due to low relevancy in a market that clearly favors convenience, which only the ready-to-drink format can offer. By finding a new way to re-position MILO Powder in a new light, we were able to re-engage with digitally savvy mothers, inspire creativity with new product usage, hence injecting fuel for growth into a dying business.

Case Summary
The Chinese beverage market was witnessing fast innovation and premiumization. Coca-Cola needed to remain relevant to its largest consumer segment: the youth.

Instead of caving in to the pressures of novelty trends, Coca-Cola decided to scratch beneath the surface of Chinese culture, giving Chinese teens a more authentic means to celebrate their cities, and ultimately, each other.

The result? A triple increase in sales (despite a 30% price premium), and brand love score doubled.

Case Summary

How do you launch a product your audience has zero interest in? This is the unlikely story of how Pond’s Men used humour instead of crude muscle to get Indonesian men to laugh – and care – about their facial wash. Using a bold idea highlighting the social jeopardy of skin care neglect, we defied the category’s tired alpha-male formula, and got men doing the unthinkable: engaging in conversations on skin care on social media, and giving Pond’s Men’s stagnant sales a huge boost of 18.8%.

Case Summary

How Tower simplified insurance for the people.

Before this campaign, Tower was seen as just another insurance company: old, traditional, and a struggle to deal with.

So Tower set out to make things simple. They simplified their process, customer interaction, and of course, their brand message.

This new brand platform helped Tower to break away from the crowd, "undo" damaging brand perceptions, and increase Digital Gross Written Premium by a massive 84% in just one year.

Turns out simple isn't just beautiful - it's profitable.

Case Summary

To grow share of credit cards in a ruthlessly competitive market with an outcompeted offering, Standard Chartered Bank leveraged millennials' consumption of trending video content that reflected their spending preferences, and created an automated system that turned such content into personalised branded content at scale. This ultimately reversed the declining trend in the business and revived growth of credit card applications in systematic, sustainable, and cost effective way.

Case Summary

This is the story of how an established insurer managed to find new value in an old brand idea – ‘Help’.

By becoming the brand that embodied Australia’s national spirit of Help, NRMA Insurance reversed 8 years of declines in customer and policy numbers and set the brand up for future long-term growth.

In just six months, ‘Help’ achieved the impossible – policy numbers are no longer in decline; incremental customer growth stands at 60,354; delivering a projected incremental profit of $46.3M with a profit-driven ROI of 263%.

Case Summary

Movember New Zealand needed a national conversation about men’s mental health but were being crowded out in a country with the highest number of charities per capita.

All we needed was a budget of just $NZ178 (yes, you read that right). The platform we used was distinctive, innovative and powerful – and the oldest one of all.

Our strategy turned $178 into over $1.7 million in donations – a 55% increase above average and the best result in seven years, plus generated $550,000 in free media.

Talk about Mo-mentum!

Case Summary

Annually, 70,000+ Indonesian neonates do not live beyond their 28th day. "Touch" educated mothers on proper bath and massage rituals that could change this. 114K moms joined to help babies of 60,000+ underprivileged mothers. Breaking the GUINNESS WORLD RECORD for largest baby massage lesson significantly increased awareness, establishing Johnson’s as a baby care expert in a category that lacked differentiation, had similar tonality, and messaging. The Campaign delivered exceedingly high PR value, increased awareness and purchase intent, turned around volume growth, and achieved highest offtake ever for Johnson’s in modern trade.

Case Summary

Over 50 years, Vicks had become an iconic brand in India, reaping the rewards of strong nostalgic goodwill by becoming associated with mother’s care. But it begun to rest on its laurels, driving growth through extensions and rational persuasion, without refreshing brand affinity. With India’s growth, this didn’t affect the brand until an unexpected event exposed unexpected weakness. We had to bring Vicks back to growth, accelerating the business by at least 10%. This is the story of how brand affinity was reignited, and the dramatic business impact that resulted.

Case Summary

#standbytoughmoms for “All Out” mosquito repellent in India injected 18% growth into a stagnant business and transformed double-digit market share decline into double-digit bps market share growth. We achieved this by making no mention of mosquitoes, or product performance. Instead, we created a film that stimulated a new conversation about how the choice of mosquito repellent reflects the courage of tough Moms making tough decisions every day raising their children. Generating 82 million views, an earned media return of more than 8:1, the film drove disproportionate brand salience and sales.

Case Summary

When you’re NZ’s largest home-grown telco and you don’t stand for anything, you’ve got a problem.

This was where Spark found itself: well known by New Zealanders, but not well known for anything in particular.

And without a point of difference Kiwis could point to, we risked looking like everyone else.

Spark now leads the category for consideration, is growing faster than ever and remains a premium brand in a commodity category, carving out a brand story that New Zealanders rallied behind.

This is the story of how we did it.

Case Summary

For Quick Service Restaurants, summer is a must-win season in Australia. Yet that also makes it the most competitive period of all. In 2017/2018, KFC needed to stand out if it was going to compete for the coveted share-of-summer wallet.

Leveraging the nation’s zeal for cricket, KFC created a unique way for Australia to show their support for the national team: by putting a bucket on their heads. The ‘KFC Buckethead Army’ achieved 80% unprompted awareness, leading to KFC growing over 30% faster than the rest of the category.

Case Summary

Plastic is the plague of our times and everyone associated with its production or distribution has a responsibility to change our toxic relationship with it. Tesco is the largest supermarket in the country and in the nine months since launch, this simple idea has reduced the number of single-use plastic bags by 32% across the entire Tesco network – the single biggest reduction in their history. More importantly, that’s millions of plastic bags saved from the eco-system and proof that millions of customers are adopting a new life-saving behavior.

Case Summary

Business owners in Australia weren’t making enough of the tax opportunities the End of Financial Year offered them.

To help them reap the rewards of tax time, Officeworks built a campaign around an invented word that would leave no doubt that there is something to gain from shopping at Officeworks. Through this one word, they demonstrated that almost every product Officeworks sells could be a tax deductible opportunity, in contrast to ‘shouty’ price-driven competitor campaigns.

The campaign delivered record sales and helped realise Officeworks’ best EOFY campaign on record.

Case Summary

The “52 Mayors” project has tremendously enhanced Danzhai’s reputation in China and around the world over the past year. By the end of 2017, a total of 5.5 million tourists visited Danzhai, a remote and previously unknown location, lifting the county’s tourism revenue up to 2.43 billion RMB. The prosperous development of Danzhai’s tourism industry has significantly improved the living standards of local residents. About 10,800 people, up to one third of the local population, have been saved from poverty.

Case Summary

How do you create interest in the lowest of low-interest categories, electricity?

Simple. You start a war.

In this case, with Norway.

Why? Because they were kicking NZ’s clean green butt in electric vehicles.

So Meridian Energy decided to show those Norwegians how it’s done.

By the time our “war” was over, Meridian had become #1 in 21 of 22 brand drivers, NPS tripled and we’d acquired more new customers than all our “Big 5” competitors combined – despite being outspent by millions!

Here’s how we did it.

Case Summary

In the era of customer centricity, the last strategy you would expect from an insurer would be to make things inconvenient. But that’s what Swann Insurance did to disrupt the category and deliver profitable market share. By creating ‘Inconvenience Stores’ in the middle of nowhere, yet at the end of some of Australia’s most epic rides, Swann Insurance gave riders ‘another reason to ride'. And in doing so drove a 52.2% increase in revenue in a flat market with a profit ROI of 45

Case Summary

In a world of digital app based solutions, Vodafone created an inclusive SMS based innovation for women, using smartphones and feature phones to help protect their privacy. Unscrupulous retailers had been selling women’s numbers to sexual predators for less than a dollar. Vodafone enabled women to recharge their real numbers by using a fake number using the Vodafone Sakhi service.

Investing in empowering women, instead of simply showing support, helped Vodafone increase usage and ARPU among women subscribers. Today Vodafone Sakhi has over 1.6 MM subscribers.

Case Summary

In agribusiness, the rice chemical (urea) fertilizer market in Thailand is highly competitive and dominated by a few key brands with little differentiation.

This competition is literally a sea of blue packaging, battling with the common promise of strong fast-growing crop, differentiated only by logo.

Kaimook, an underdog brand, broke with the norm launching a red & white pack together with a unique campaign that became the first in its category to market fertilizer via branded content in an entertaining way.

The results? A 50% increase in sales from the previous year.

Case Summary

KFC is an established, universally popular brand in Malaysia. With a largely Muslim population, the traditional role of women is firmly entrenched, even today. To celebrate International Woman's Day 2018, our challenge was to join the rallying cry for gender parity without alienating our Muslim shareholders, staff and customers. With a shoestring budget of only $10,000, we used a simple logo change to unveil the untold story of Claudia Sanders, wife of Colonel Sanders.

Case Summary

To grow share of credit cards in a ruthlessly competitive market with an outcompeted offering, Standard Chartered Bank leveraged millennials' consumption of trending video content that reflected their spending preferences, and created an automated system that turned such content into personalised branded content at scale. This ultimately reversed the declining trend in the business and revived growth of credit card applications in systematic, sustainable, and cost effective way.

Case Summary

In Indonesia, one of the world's biggest markets for 2 wheelers, the 2 wheeler riders found themselves in pain every time they got stuck in traffic. The launch campaign empathised with riders using data signals like traffic, and time of day to set bikers free with "get out of traffic" ads to help them click and escape using newly launched narrower lanes on Google Maps 2 Wheeler mode.

Case Summary

Digi had always been the #3 preferred telco brand in a category with only four major players. No matter how aggressively we pushed, Digi’s brand preference scores remained stuck below our competitors’. Traditionally, the quickest and easiest way to build preference is to engage a big name celebrity to endorse us, but people were beginning to see this as insincere. This is a story of how we won the Malays over by discarding the conventional KOL strategy to create an advocate for Digi that the community rooted for and trusted.

Case Summary

Wooing youth has always been the holy grail for brands–from colas to fashion labels.While addressing this challenge, an interesting insight paved the way for American Tourister. Insight - The youth is more likely to spend their time and money on something money can’t buy-social currency,the need to be noticed for their broadcasted performance.So we turned our backpack into a social-currency generator.The #Swagpack Challenge was seeded and popularized by India’s biggest youth icons and influencers. Result - a record surge in sales, social media engagement and earned media worth 2.5 times the national media campaign spends.

Case Summary

With USD100,000, we added USD11 million of value to oyster trade in Hiroshima Prefecture, Japan, a region renowned for delicious oysters.

We achieved this by leveraging shame around the fact that 99% of Hiroshima residents could not write the word “oyster” correctly in Kanji, the original Japanese writing system.

We created a news outcry around this fact and provided a remedy - a school workbook dedicated to oysters - helping children learn how to write and understand everything about oysters, generating positive publicity, and putting oysters back on everyone’s plate.

Case Summary

DentaStix was in a dog fight against copycat products. And it was losing. So we decided to change the fight. We stopped talking about DentaStix as just another functional, oral care product for dogs – and repositioned it as a playful treat that brought dogs and owners closer together. We created SelfieSTIX, a product that facilitated the best selfie moments between owner and their canine companions. As a result, DentaStix saw its highest sales period ever and maintained a strong stable baseline, even when another copycat entered the fight.

Case Summary

Snickers showed accelerated market loss during Chinese New Year, which is actually the most profitable season for Chocolates as gifts.

Snickers is not about gifting. We are about hunger.

So how to get a fair share in this special season?

A unique role that successfully unlocked its huge business potential during CNY: Snickers Hunger Free Migration.

We launched the world’s first hunger-free airlines in collaboration with China Eastern, creating an amazing experience that entertained millions during 2018 CNY, driving up net sales value by more than 60%.

Case Summary

In their relentless drive for customers the gambling brands have resorted to screaming offers and promotions at people. It’s annoying and misses the point. TAB realised that gambling isn’t really about winning money, so relying on monetary offers and promotions would only get them so far. Winning in gambling required a deeper connection. Head vs Heart didn’t shout, it asked a very simple question instead – how will you bet? The campaign out-performed 2014 by a whopping 27% even without sponsoring the national team once.

Case Summary

In 2017, Australia held a vote to determine whether same-sex marriage should be legalised. The debate became increasingly negative with a fear campaign creating uncertainty in the community and increasing the strain felt by LGBTIQ Australians. Our aim was to transcend the negativity, shift perceptions and bring love back to the fore with a powerful and unifying message: same sex marriage is just like any other. Leveraging a key television moment in ‘The Bachelor’ finale, we ignited a national conversation to evoke empathy, advocacy, and ultimately influence a 'Yes' vote.

Case Summary

Vodafone hijacked the 2018 IPL, (Superbowl of Indian cricket, across 2 months) from competition who had invested significantly in sponsoring the event. Vodafone launched FANtastic Breaks, an interactive contest that leveraged second screen behaviour and the inherent need, of cricket fans to prove their expertise to, distract viewers from competition advertising.

FANtastic Breaks helped bolster Vodafone’s saliency and consideration, two critical contributors to customer retention in a predominantly prepaid market (calling card), without paying a single dollar as an official sponsor.

Case Summary

Problem:

In today's day and age rarely does it happen that a campaign idea stretches itself over a decade without any fatigue. 'Daag Achhe Hai' by Surf Excel has been one such campaign that has won hearts and grown the brand from strength to strength clocking a 300% growth and become South Asia's largest & mum's most trusted laundry brand.

Our biggest victory, consumers love us and brands even outside of our category had started aping us.

Case Summary

Wooing youth has always been the holy grail for brands–from colas to fashion labels.While addressing this challenge, an interesting insight paved the way for American Tourister. Insight - The youth is more likely to spend their time and money on something money can’t buy-social currency,the need to be noticed for their broadcasted performance.So we turned our backpack into a social-currency generator.The #Swagpack Challenge was seeded and popularized by India’s biggest youth icons and influencers. Result -a record surge in sales, social media engagement and earned media worth 2.5 times the national media campaign spends.

Case Summary

How do you create interest in the lowest of low-interest categories, electricity?

Simple. You start a war.

In this case, with Norway.

Why? Because they were kicking NZ’s clean green butt in electric vehicles.

So Meridian Energy decided to show those Norwegians how it’s done.

By the time our “war” was over, Meridian had become #1 in 21 of 22 brand drivers, NPS tripled and we’d acquired more new customers than all our “Big 5” competitors combined – despite being outspent by millions!

Here’s how we did it.

Case Summary

This is the story of how Castrol, a longstanding competitor in India’s fiercely competitive truck engine oil market, when faced with declining volumes and waning brand love, decided to care for the health of India’s truckers just as its lubricants care for the health of their trucks.

And, through this process proved that elevating category conversation not only gets desired business results, but also (literally!) strengthens the backbone of a country by engaging with its truckers over the most neglected aspect of their life, their health.

Case Summary

Spark’s Kupu campaign was geared to drive a single outcome: app downloads.

Considering that branded apps typically yield low numbers of downloads, (90% of branded apps achieve fewer than 10,000 downloads), the odds of generating real impact were stacked against us.

Yet, before the end of the first week, Kupu was the number one trending app in both Apple’s App Store and Google’s Play store, and had received unprecedented coverage across numerous major NZ media outlets.

And, most importantly, we exceeded our download target by +519%.

Now that’s effective.

Case Summary

The recall of faulty Takata airbags, which threatened millions of Australian motorists, required us to tackle the largest obstacle well beyond the scope of communications. To do so, we had to bring together a multi-discpinary team to create a world-first utility that enabled people to simply and immediately identify if their car is at risk.

The campaign promoting this utility motivated our audience to check 3.25M vehicles in the weeks after launch, identifying almost 500,000 affected vehicles and making the roads safer for all.