LBi, AMV BBDO, Wieden & Kennedy, Red Bee Media and Budweiser were this month honoured at the IAB’s annual Creative Showcase Grand Prix Awards ceremony. This video showcases the campaigns that took the top gongs at this year’s event.
The campaign to promote the Kaiser Chiefs album The Future is Medieval took the top honours at the IAB’s Creative Showcase Grand Prix 2011.
The ‘Kaiser Chiefs Bespoke Album Creation Experience’ – created by Wieden & Kennedy in collaboration with Specialmoves – scooped the Best Creative Award and Creativity in Social Media Awards at the IAB’s annual celebration of digital creativity.
The campaign broke with the conventional model of releasing an album by placing fans at the heart of the creative process and giving them the opportunity and tools to make the album they wanted to hear. Fans could create their perfect version of the album, design their own artwork and then sell their creations for a £1 commission.
Agency of the Year
LBi picked up the prestigious Agency of the Year award in recognition of the agency’s consistently strong output throughout 2011, winning three monthly awards and two runners up awards.
Singled out for praise were the agency’s campaigns for Hendrick’s Gin, Sony Ericsson Xperia, Help for Heroes and Macmillan Cancer Support.
Commenting on the award, Simon Gill, Executive Creative Director at LBi, said: “We’re proper stoked to have won the IAB Agency of the Year. It’s a great reflection of our team’s hard work, creativity, tenacity and fun, not to mention the trust and belief of our clients. Here’s to next year and more great work. Rock on. And big up to the IAB for organising a top award showcase”.
Advertiser Award
Budweiser won the Advertiser Award for its campaign The Budweiser Ice Cold Index, a concept created by Tribal DDB to highlight the importance of an ice-cold beer during hot summer days. At the heart of the campaign was a reward system which meant that as the temperature went up the price of beer came down.
To support the campaign, a free app showed customers’ local temperatures and how much they could save on that day. The app also directed customers to one of 2,500 participating pubs and let them claim their pint for a reduced price.
Creativity in Mobile
AMV BBDO took top honours in the Creativity in Mobile category. The Nightjar, a campaign for Wrigleys 5 Gum featured a very unusual mobile game – a video game with no video. Instead of using sight, participants were invited to find their way out of a dying spaceship through hearing alone.
The NightJar game was developed by Somethin’ Else and featured pioneering use of 3D binaural sound technology in smartphones alongside the vocal talents of Sherlock actor Benedict Cumberbatch.
Creativity in Video
Red Bee Media won the Creativity in Video award for their campaign to promote Season Two of FOX’s hit series The Walking Dead.
FOX challenged Red Bee to help broaden The Walking Dead’s audience beyond the comic fanboys who love the show. Red Bee created an innovative personalised Facebook app, centred on a specially shot first person POV film. The innovative use of Facebook Connect and users’ own webcams seamlessly created a personalised experience, leaving Red Bee to conclude: “We believe that we have established a new benchmark in what’s possible within a personalised video experience.”
Discussing the awards, Sophia Amin, the IAB’s Director of Marketing and Communications, comments: “2011 was a fantastic year for creativity in the digital advertising space. We’ve seen diversity of entries across mobile, social, and video, which reflects the trends we’re seeing in industry spend.
“The emergence of platforms and rising consumer expectations is really setting the standards. Creative Showcase is now in its 9th year and we’re exceptionally proud of the work on creativeshowcase.net. If you have cutting edge work you want to shout about, we want to hear from you.”
Reviewing the creative, the IAB’s co-founder and first CEO Danny Meadows-Klue commented “When we set up the Creative Showcase in the early 2000s, there was a real need to simply show marketers what could be done with digital advertising. It’s great to see the creativity continue to come on in leaps and bounds – and the UK industry continues to set the global agenda”.
But creative standout is no-longer the big goal for many marketers. “As agencies became more confident in using the tools, the focus rightly shifted to ROI and the effectiveness of what’s being done. Today that should be at the heart of every marketing director’s agenda, so when teams are reviewing their agency’s creative, the key questions to ask will be around how this builds brand, raises purchase intent, or drives conversions”.
