2022 Winners

Case Summary

Despite Head & Shoulders being Australia’s leading anti-dandruff shampoo, young Aussie Dandruff Sufferers were rarely using it. We aimed to dramatically increase Head & Shoulders sales and share in overall Australia’s haircare category by making it an integral part of Aussies’ day-to-day lives. To achieve that, we pivoted from the final dandruff symptom of flakes to the early symptom of annoying scalp itch. Our efforts led to massive increase in brand’s sales, sales value & volume share in haircare category, brand awareness and purchase intent scores.

Case Summary

How does a fizzy drink that’s fizzling out, with no positive sentiment among drinkers in a shrinking softdrinks category, go to bat against international goliath Coca-Cola during a global pandemic? By embodying the zeitgeist of its Gen. Z drinker: “Whatever."

Results? RC Cola reversed the sales decline caused by government’s sugar tax, increased sales of flagship RC Cola Mega by 67%, raised positive sentiment about the brand by 25%, and became part of pop culture during a pandemic—when Filipinos had no reason to be drinking a celebratory soda.

Case Summary

This is the story of how Australian Lamb’s ‘Make Lamb, Not Walls’ campaign smashed all targets on its way to becoming the brand’s most talked about campaign in history.

Combining an enduring brand strategy, a dystopian vision of Australia and an irresistible lamb chop more than tripled Lamb’s retail sales targets, reversed three-year volume declines and handed farmers their biggest ROI ever.

All despite record-high retail prices, record-low wage growth, an increasingly popular flexitarian bandwagon, Australia’s first recession in 29 years, and a once-in-a-century pandemic that extinguished Australia’s BBQs.

Case Summary

‘Goodnight with Naselin’ is an idea that didn’t just launch the brand’s consumerisation journey but one that powered successful product innovation.

By challenging the category norm of ‘jump-back-to-work’, Naselin encouraged a nation of young-strivers to rest and finally enjoy a goodnight’s sleep during cold.

Sleep– an unclaimed occasion for adults, one when blocked nose feels the worst. We followed the journey-of-suffering and ditched the classical journey-of-selling. Our idea platform accelerated Naselin’s offtakes by 122% and created a new revenue-stream from cold-rubs which within two months contributed to 19% more revenue.

Case Summary

In covid-restricted times, with people looking to upgrade their home environments rather than radically transform them, they weren’t thinking of IKEA as the go-to place for accessibly-priced accessories, since people usually think of IKEA only when they want to buy big items.

To solve this, we reinvented the catalogue! We selected 200 IKEA goods with very low prices and then launched the “IKEA Dollar Catalogue,” transforming the catalogue from a tool for ‘top-down’ lifestyle inspiration to an unashamedly ‘bottom-up’ demonstration of accessible and broad-based value.

Case Summary

2degrees is the number-three challenger brand in the New Zealand telco market. With a brand idea of ‘Fighting For Fair’, our communication was focused on identifying unfair behaviour from our two big competitors, and using it to promote our great value. Our brief was to address 2degrees decline in prepay customers, we identified something scandalous in the fine-print of our competitors’ contract. They charged their customers 13 times a year not 12! As the fairness crusader, 2degrees pointed this injustice out, earning the country’s attention and significantly growing market share.

Case Summary

Covid affected many industries, but none more perilously placed than Tourism New Zealand (TNZ). With international tourism halted, TNZ were forced to majorly pivot or risk economic crisis. So for the first time since the 1980s, they advertised to New Zealanders (Kiwis). The goal being to convince Kiwis to holiday and spend as if they were tourists. Introducing ‘Do Something New, New Zealand’. A completely integrated campaign that constantly found new ways to encourage Kiwis to do new activities. It became famous, changed attitudes, and helped save NZ’s tourism economy.

Case Summary

He has to pee very often. At times, it’s involuntary. It’s bad, he has stopped going out. He doesn’t want to use diapers because they’re for babies. Even admitting he has a problem implies loss of manhood. This is the plight of millions of Indian men who abort their active lives because of urinary incontinence. Friends made peeing in pants acceptable for men who wouldn’t even admit that they had a problem — by ‘normalizing’ it. Our campaign helped 6,72,167 Indians resume life as normal and grew brand sales by 18%.

Case Summary

While local players got stronger in Thailand, Colgate declined. To revitalise the brand, Colgate, as the champion of smiles decided to redefine the power of a smile in the Thai context. Through the Yimsu campaign, Colgate reminded everyone that a smile supercharged with optimism not only has the power to smash stereotypes, but also build bridges. Thanks to Yimsu, not only is our brand saliency at an all time high, but we also managed to arrest our 5 year decline & beat growth projections by 40% in just 6 months!

Case Summary

FEATURING TWO TRANSGENDER JOB-SEEKERS AS ROLE MODELS, PANTENE IGNITED A CULTURAL CONVERSATION FOR A MORE LGBTQ FRIENDLY SOCIETY. “As a male or female, which gender should I present myself while job-hunting?” – while most job-seekers worry about their career path, LGBTQ candidates also have to worry about their gender. In the country where uniformity and conformity are considered virtues, LGBTQ job-seekers are ignored by society. By featuring two successful transgender job-seekers as role models, Pantene not only inspired future LGBTQ job-seekers, but also motivated Japanese companies to become more LGBTQ-friendly.

Case Summary

Two of the most common grouses of Grab delivery riders are (1) too much downtime while waiting for restaurants to prepare food, and (2) that gig work is "dead end work" with little prospects for career growth and self-development. Grab's new 5 minute Academy was designed to address precisely both these grouses by turning driver downtime into driver upskilling time.

Case Summary

Pharmacist, India’s de-facto doctors, doubted the wearability of Adult Diapers for active people. Our hack – Create an outlandish visual act that demonstrates extreme wearability to the cynical pharmacist! Our hack - ‘The Undie Army’! The army didn’t just capture the chemist’s undivided attention but also drove conviction. While such acts are known to deliver small spurts in sales, ‘The Undie Army’ did more than just that, it changed the perception of a product forever; Result - Double-digit growth in the number of dealers and triple-digit in sales!

Case Summary

The Philippines remained to be the last country in the world with classrooms shuttered by Covid-19. This is the story of how McDonald’s transformed its unused party rooms (also shuttered by pandemic restrictions) into lively classrooms to help students and teachers struggling with the distance learning system. Piloted in 2020 and expanded in 2021 into 249 locations all over the country, McDonald’s Classroom helped redefine the brand experience in the new normal, and not only generated fame for the brand, but uplifted Filipinos’ trust in the company.

Case Summary

Social Impact reports were originally created to help customers make better-informed choices about supporting those companies with the greatest social, economic or environment in their communities. Alas, they’re usually too boring to be read and thus, fail in influencing socially-impactful consumer choices. The Reinvention of Social Impact Reports was long overdue - and this Effie case is about how Grab got millions of ordinary people to read a report by using data to personalise a unique report for every single Grab user.

Case Summary

The Challenge – One of Vietnams biggest festivals Trung Thu was losing relevance, especially in a military lockdown. The Insight – Nostalgia is a powerful trigger to get people to celebrate a festival by rekindling past memories of it. The Idea – Keep festive stories alive virtually. Bringing the Idea to Life – We developed AI Technology to bring alive old festive photos and co-created content so people can experience the festival in a lockdown. The Results – We reached 47 million people with 14 million engagements & grew ecommerce by 8%YOY.

Case Summary

The Philippines remained to be the last country in the world with classrooms shuttered by Covid-19. This is the story of how McDonald’s transformed its unused party rooms (also shuttered by pandemic restrictions) into lively classrooms to help students and teachers struggling with the distance learning system. Piloted in 2020 and expanded in 2021 into 249 locations all over the country, McDonald’s Classroom helped redefine the brand experience in the new normal, and not only generated fame for the brand, but uplifted Filipinos’ trust in the company.

Case Summary

We needed to increase awareness and understanding of Motor Neurone Disease for MND NZ. The debilitating nature of MND means that overtime your muscles deteriorate to a point where you lose the ability to use everyday items. To demonstrate this, we created ‘David’s Unusables’ – a media-led idea that digitally charted the ‘real-life’ decline of David Seymour by selling items he could no longer use on NZ’s leading e-marketplace -TradeMe. The creative use of this platform captured nationwide attention and drove home the effect of the disease in the process.

Case Summary

This is a case about how a native Indian cola brand, Thums Up, went against all odds to become a market leader at a time when COVID-19 tore through the carbonated beverage industry. The secret to Thums Up’s success was an outcome of the brand’s courage to overturn traditional cola marketing conventions on their head. Instead of delighting the over-delighted urban youth, Thums Up went all out to appeal to the upcountry Indian youth. The efforts led to a 56.91% increase in Quarterly sales compared to pre-pandemic period.

Case Summary

How KFC Australia secured sustainable ecommerce growth through an Augmented Reality game that asked Aussies to find virtual buckets in exchange for winning bucketloads. The game employed behavioural science theory to get players to value rewards more and encourage ‘sticky’ behaviour within KFC’s ecommerce channel. Shying away from superficially branded, promotional games that deliver short-term sales to a fully gamified brand experience which brought new customers in and drove bucketloads of incremental value to the business.

Case Summary

How does a fizzy drink that’s fizzling out, with no positive sentiment among drinkers in a shrinking softdrinks category, go to bat against international goliath Coca-Cola during a global pandemic? By embodying the zeitgeist of its Gen. Z drinker: “Whatever." Results? RC Cola reversed the sales decline caused by government’s sugar tax, increased sales of flagship RC Cola Mega by 67%, raised positive sentiment about the brand by 25%, and became part of pop culture during a pandemic—when Filipinos had no reason to be drinking a celebratory soda.

Case Summary

How do you value a human life? Victoria Police have lost 20 officers to suicide since 2012. As one Police Officer explained in research, “The uniform is more than simply clothing. It says...you will be resilient and rise above situations – almost bulletproof “. This cultural belief, combined with an environment that shut down conversations about suicide, meant a radical approach was needed. With only $400k investment, a brave and innovative piece of work was created that is starting to overturn a culture that has been embedded for 165 years.

Case Summary

Few brands can directly challenge a defining part of Australian culture and win. This is the story of the three most successful years in Canadian Club’s history, where sales went in the words of our distributor, “gangbusters”. Through a disciplined commitment to a provocative strategy and consistent creative approach, we struck at the heart of Australian beer drinking culture, returning Canadian Club back to growth. By liberating Australians from the cultural obligation to drink beer, Canadian Club unleashed its true growth potential, amounting to a phenomenal incremental revenue.

Case Summary

Many social marketing ideas create awareness for a short time with disarming activations. They burn bright then fade. Stop it at the Start is an enduring idea, changing a generation, with positive impacts being built on with each new phase. From recognising the excuses we make for disrespect allow violence against women to grow, to reconciling people’s own role, and finally responding with “Unmute Yourself”. Stop it at the Start remains what the former Australian prime minister called “one of the most effective government advertising campaigns I’ve ever seen.”

Case Summary

In five short years, Uber Eats Australia has gone from a start-up bet, riding the coat-tails of parent-brand Uber, to #1 online food delivery (OFD) brand with over 50% national penetration and two-thirds marketshare - in the process disrupting existing behaviour and growing a nascent category from just $142million annual revenue (AUD) to over $850million. Ruthless commitment to consistent, long-term brand marketing through the culture-shaping 'Tonight, I'll be eating...' platform was pivotal to this success, establishing the brand's distinctive assets from scratch and supercharging sustained awareness, consideration and acquisition growth.

Case Summary

90% of Indian women have arranged marriages and are subjected to the cruel practice of ‘the beauty test’ in the match-making process, that diminishes their self-esteem. ‘Stop The Beauty Test’ was movement to create meaningful change and a step towards achieving Dove’s ambition of an inclusive world where women enjoy beauty on their own terms. The campaign made headlines and got the nation talking about the issue. It resulted in a significant improvement in positive brand perceptions, a 10% increase in brand love and a 25% increase in consideration.

Case Summary

FEATURING TWO TRANSGENDER JOB-SEEKERS AS ROLE MODELS, PANTENE IGNITED A CULTURAL CONVERSATION FOR A MORE LGBTQ FRIENDLY SOCIETY. “As a male or female, which gender should I present myself while job-hunting?” – while most job-seekers worry about their career path, LGBTQ candidates also have to worry about their gender. In the country where uniformity and conformity are considered virtues, LGBTQ job-seekers are ignored by society. By featuring two successful transgender job-seekers as role models, Pantene not only inspired future LGBTQ job-seekers, but also motivated Japanese companies to become more LGBTQ-friendly.

Case Summary

INDIAN MEN CAN LEGALLY RAPE THEIR WIVES. India has 230 million married women and 2 in 3 are raped by their husbands. Yet marital rape is not a crime. RIT Foundation, a prominent gender equality NGO, filed a petition in the Delhi High Court in 2015 to end this tragic absurdity - but they were only met with stubborn silence. This is the story of how 'Please Arrest Me' provoked the world's biggest paternalistic society, to reignite a dead issue and forced stubborn institutions to give change, a long-overdue hearing.

Case Summary

What does an impending death bell sound like to a brand? For Campus, India’s largest shoe brand, it was the realisation that the youth in the world’s youngest country would rather buy fakes of international brands than be associated with a brand uncool to their generation. This case illustrates how Campus was able to prop itself as a legitimately fashionable brand and increase sales by 34% for the festive quarter by communicating to the youth in India’s national language – dance. Just one that has never been seen before.