We are almost at the point of saying goodbye to another year: 2017 has been described as a time of change for marketers, one that has presented many challenges . . . GDPR preparations, customers’ increasing expectations and the inexorable rise of marketing automation and artificial intelligence bringing the future into the here and now. There’s been a big deal of strategic thinking and planning going on.
But amid all the minutiae and detail that pepper their day jobs, marketers still have to display brilliance and inspiration in the campaigns that pay their wages. And more than 1,000 of them put their work under the scrutiny of judges of the 2017 UK DMA Awards earlier this month – a competition whose slogan declares its accolades to be ‘Rewardingly hard to win’. They certainly are; it took more than 300 senior marketers from agencies, brands and suppliers, four days to go through the entries and choose their favourites.
As Nicky Bullard, chairman of the DMA Awards committee, said: “It’s been a year of change for our industry, with agencies evolving and people moving. The result has been what feels like some unsettled work. In spite of this, it’s encouraging to see that the work across the board continues to be strong. Every one of this year’s winners should be proud of their achievements, which highlight that whatever the market conditions, strategic talent, strong client leadership and creative consistency will always win out.”
Karmarama and the British Army took home this year’s Grand Prix award with the ‘This is Belonging’ campaign showing intelligent use of data, creative implementation and outstanding results. Incidentally, Karmarama won the Grand Prix last year, too – for its unibet campaign.
Proximity London scooped the largest haul, winning seven Golds, followed by Engine, Karmarama and LIDA who each won three. The leading brands were E.ON, the British Army, the RNLI and Scope, claiming three Golds each, followed by Virgin Holidays which took two.
Altogether, 17 different agencies and 22 brands won Golds across the 33 categories this year, highlighting the great work being done across the industry.
Rachel Aldighieri, MD of the UK DMA, said: “Rigour sits at the heart of the UK DMA Awards, making them the toughest awards to win. Winning campaigns have to deliver a rock solid strategy, outstanding creative execution and achieve great results.”
She added: “Winning a DMA award means you’ve truly made a difference. However, there can only be one Grand Prix winner and Karmarama’s work with the British Army really highlighted how the smart use of data, creativity in both strategy and execution, and intelligent implementation delivers fantastic results.”
Client: The British Army, ‘This is Belonging’.
Campaign overview. Previous army campaigns motivated applications from people who were most likely to join any way, so the brief was to increase applications across all streams from a broader pool of people.
Strategy. To begin, Karmarama’s strategists took a data sample of previously successful recruits and matched this into their Continuum datapool – a proprietary aggregated database of 48 million UK adults.
From there, tech experts used neurolinguistics to model their interests and behaviours. A unique algorithm scraped social profiles of soldiers and matched the time stamps of their interaction with the army to what they were doing on social. This revealed distinct barriers and motivations and, crucially, provided social behavioural triggers that the team onboarded to all digital buys to optimise targeting and journeys.
Their creative strategists then used psychological studies and qualitative interviews to identify a universal emotional broad enough to be eventually tailored to the drivers now identified, making the candidate journey more powerful.
In addition, analysis of candidate data informed media weightings, tightening the media plan, not least in applying the identified social behavioural triggers to the contact strategy.
Creativity. The British Army needed to ensure that the sense of belonging they revealed felt unequivocally real. Karmarama’s creative teams went and met real soldiers who feature throughout the campaign, seeking out authentic and unexpected stories of belonging. Delivering a suite of online digital content that showcased moments of belonging, contextual to the individual’s specific barriers and drivers, delivered to them at the most effective time. The team created content-rich journeys, dependent on which messaging route the individual converted via, creating a seamless experience. By utilising their tagging technology, machine learning and AI capability, they were able to continually optimise content and budget distribution to ensure the content worked as hard as possible. Everyone expects guns and tanks from the army. Karmarama shone a light on belonging and made it more and more personally relevant, the closer candidates got to application.
Results. ‘This is Belonging’ produced record-breaking results versus the same period the previous year, reporting 139% increase in completed applications for regular officers, 80% uplift in completed applications for reserve soldiers and 58% uplift in completed applications for regular soldiers. The campaign has been extended for a second year.
Team. Nik Studzinski (Chief Creative Officer) Karmarama – Dickie Connell (Executive Creative Director) Karmarama – Adam Kean (Executive Creative Director) Karmarama – James Rooke (Creative Director) Karmarama – Imogen Tazzyman (Creative Director) Karmarama – Rachel Holding (Copywriter) Karmarama – Daniel Leppanen (Art Director) Karmarama – Matthew Waksman (Senior Planner) Karmarama – Charlotte Hodgson (Business Lead) Karmarama – Steven Milburn (Account Director) Karmarama – Sophie Coyne (Account Manager) Karmarama – Rebecca Hunter (Agency Producer (TV)) Karmarama – Charlotte Lipsius (Production Assistant (TV)) Karmarama – Sarah Knight (Agency Producer (Photography)) Karmarama – Josh Lowe (Designer) Karmarama – Henry Alex (Rubin Director) Smuggler – Molly Pope (Producer) Smuggler – Adam Evans (Production Manager) Smuggler – Fiona Martin (Production Manager) Smuggler – Lisa Tsouloupa (Production Designer) Freelance – Tony Fernandes (1st AD) Freelance – Spencer Ferszt (Offline Editor) MPC – Dan Sanders (VFX Supervisor) MPC – Dan Sanders (VFX Artist) MPC – James Niklasson (VFX Producer) MPC – Matthieu Toullet (Colourist MPC) – Sam Ashwell (Sound Design) MPC – Andrew Webber (Head of Data) Karmarama – Alex Ho (Growth Strategist) Karmarama – Stefano Matteoli (Chief Data Officer) Ignition AI.
Client: The RNLI, ‘Communication Saves Lives’.
Campaign overview. With charities being lambasted for their unethical use of data, the RNLI made a pledge never to contact supporters again unless given renewed permission. The reason for opting-in had to be an immediate and powerful one.
Strategy. Proximity London’s research revealed that only 6% of people would renew permissions – and the RNLI needed 22%. There was also a ‘privacy paradox’ that said people demand rational information, but decide emotionally: people will agonise over giving email details to a retailer while sharing their most intimate moments on Facebook. Proximity London set about stripping away the marketing jargon to make people actively want to sign up. The cost of not opting in was rooted in its human cost; the ability to save lives.
Creativity. The RNLI receives hundreds of distress calls every day. Proximity London’s creative journey started by adopting this sense of urgency. ‘Communication saves lives’ was the call to arms, driven home by three distinct waves over a 12-month period. The first wave went local and personal with a direct plea from supporters’ nearest lifeboat station and the charity’s chief executive. The second was a national call, made using radio, broadsheet print ads and targeted Facebook videos, supported by a digital hub. The hub featured a ‘tick’ made from survivors of previous rescues, whose stories were retold in an affecting series of online films using real-life rescue footage. The RNLI’s final push reached out to the wider supporter community to create ‘a movement of the advocated’ – arming supporters with an emoji tick and Facebook header they could use to update their page with once they had opted in.
Results. Within days of launching, spontaneous donations began flooding in. The opt-in target of 255k was hit and then almost doubled with 450k supporters giving the RNLI permission to keep in touch. In the ‘summer cash’ appeal that followed this activity, the RNLI got more than triple the response rate and level of donations achieved over the same period of the previous year. Supporters were reinvigorated, stronger and more committed than ever. The campaign also provided opt-in learning across the sector, with four large charities following suit.
Team. Emma Crean (Group Account Director) Proximity London – Suzanne Partridge (Managing Partner) Proximity London – Rebecca Bell (Copywriter) Proximity London – Clare Trepleton (Art Director) Proximity London – Kathy Howes (Senior Creative Producer) Proximity London – John Treacy (Executive Creative Director) Proximity London – Nick Myers (Planning Director) Proximity London – Jodie Armstrong-Downes (Planning Director) Proximity London – Megan Thompson (Senior Data Planner) Proximity London – Claire Tusler (Data Strategy Partner) Proximity London.
Client: E.ON. E.ON x Gorillaz: A Solar Collaboration.
Campaign overview. E.ON needed a fresh approach. In a world of dull utilities, it needed to become the un-utility. It needed a wow. It needed a solar collaboration.
Strategy. The average European customer thinks about their energy supplier for just eight minutes a year. E.ON had to re-engage a disengaged audience. Engine knew that the brand had some great stories to tell – smart, innovative, exciting products that were genuinely shaping a better future, but if the storyteller was a conventional energy company, delivering them through traditional channels, interest waned. However compelling E.ON’s stories were, they were unlikely to reach or engage consumers through traditional media. So Engine decided to tell its stories in an unconventional, un-utility way. For the first time ever, a utility company would be a relevant part of popular culture.
Creativity. Engine approached Gorillaz, a band which champions sustainability, then turned to E.ON’s new products, starting with their pioneering solar and battery storage technology. At the heart of the campaign, the team created an online film, set to the track ‘We Got The Power’ from Gorillaz’ new album. It was a music video powered entirely by the sun. The team also created the ‘E.ON Kong Solar Studio’, a solar powered recording studio, based on the band’s original Kong Studios, and kicked off a tour of European festivals at Gorillaz Demon Dayz Festival in Margate. Using the power generated by E.ON solar PV panels, Kong Studios came to life at night when it hosted recordings by local talent, with their tracks appearing on a dedicated soundcloud page and the E.ON website.
Results. Fans shared the video organically and thousands more visited the Kong Studios at Gorillaz Demon Dayz Festival. The film was viewed more than 100.5 million times, reaching 78 million people. More than 239,000 hours of content were viewed in total, increasing E.ON’s website traffic by 8.1%. This resulted in a huge 146% lift in brand interest and a 97% lift in creative interest in the UK, with even higher spikes in other markets, such as Italy which saw a 443% increase in brand interest and a 243% increase in creative. The campaign shifted people’s perception of E.ON from a dull utility company to an enabler of amazing energy solutions by 94%.
Team. Polly Jones (Client Managing Director) Engine – Billy Faithfull (Executive Creative Director) Engine – Chris Lapham (Creative) Engine – Aaron McGurk (Creative) Engine – Bradley Woodus (Executive Producer) Engine – Albert Ponnelle (Account Director) Engine – Cat Melville (Account Manager) Engine – John Crowther (Strategy Director) Engine – Matthias Gray (Senior Strategist) Engine – Beth Ward (Experiential Producer) Engine – Lucy Hart (Head of Influence) Engine – Amy Dick (Senior Project Manager) Engine – Anthony Ainsworth (Head of Global Marketing) E.ON – Emma Inston (Global Head of Brand & Customer Communications) E.ON – Noah Harris (Director Blinkink) – Bart Yates (Executive Producer) Blinkink – Ewen Brown (Producer) Blinkink – Lucy Jones (Production Manager) Blinkink Patrick Mellor (Director of Photography) Blinkink – Drogo Michie (Art Director) Blinkink – Lloyd Vincent (Prop Man) Blinkink – Max Windows (Editor) Blinkink Kate McConnell (Art Department) Blinkink.
Contributors. Blinkink (Production) Nineteen Twenty (Post Production) Free Folk Grade Gorillaz (Music) Asylum Model (Makers & SFX).
Client: Scope, ‘Mindful Monsters’.
Campaign overview. Scope wanted to grow its supporter base to recruit regular donors. Mums wanted to connect with their children in an easy and imaginative new way. There had to be a marriage between the two.
Strategy. Faced with low brand awareness and a little-understood cause, the team needed to create an audience-led, regular-giving product, which provided new audiences new reasons to engage long-term. Insight drove the strategy: mums wanted to build children’s emotional resilience and life skills, and Scope needed to deliver regular donations in return. To maximise the product’s appeal, the Scope brand took a backseat at acquisition. The strategy was to create a visual ID, tone of voice and personality for an activity pack, Mindful Monsters.
Creativity. Four illustrated monster characters were developed to reflect the four themes of mindfulness. Mums told the team their children needed concentration, positivity, relaxation and creativity. The cards used creative visuals of the monsters to demonstrate the activity as donors worked through the monthly deliveries of cards. With the monsters established, the product was developed to make the cards collectable; introducing a parent guide and ‘surprise and delight’ mechanics like stickers and a collector’s box. Once signed up, the team curated authentic content to maximise retention. Supporters received a monthly pack of activity cards and two bimonthly emails: the first a teaser, informing supporters their pack is on its way and what to expect from it, the second offering tips, advice, extra activities, surveys and encouragement.
Results. The campaign delivered 33% more sign-ups than predicted in the first three months. Mindful Monsters opened up a new audience of mums with young children. 95% of responders had no previous connection to Scope, an audience of 1.8 million. The launch delivered improvements versus the core channel, face to face across both cost efficiency and quality: the cost per new regular donor was 75% lower, retention levels were nine times better and the campaign is projected to break-even in half the time.
Team. Claire Whitney (Supporter Marketing Manager) Scope – Alexandra Aggidis (Acquisition Fundraiser) Scope – Karen Barnes (Head of Individual Giving) Scope – Janine Chandler (Partner) Good Innovation – Andrew Bathgate (Partner) Good Innovation – Clare Breheny (Innovation Consultant) Good Innovation – Liz Black (Junior Account Director) Open Creates – Lydia Skinner (Designer) Open Creates – Alfie Waldron (Copywriter) Open Creates – Kim McEvoy (Account Manager) Open Creates – Cerys Glen (Account Manager) Open Creates.
Contributors. Medialab, Equimedia, Clearprint.
Client: Inmarsat Aviation, ‘The Connected Air Experience’.
Campaign overview. Inmarsat Aviation wanted to show, not tell, how GX Aviation creates value for airlines in a way that improved customer understanding and created sales conversations. The solution lay in a truly immersive exhibit.
Strategy. Inmarsat Aviation needed to change the conversation about passenger broadband. Research told OgilvyOne Business airlines craved illustrations of tangible benefits: inflight wi-fi isn’t a utility; it is a strategic value-creator. They needed to address audience confusion creatively, showcasing thought-leadership. Two key trade shows, APEX and AIX, were pinpointed as their opportunity to reach decision-makers en masse.
Creativity. At APEX and AIX, OgilvyOne Business created an immersive exhibit, Connected Air, which invited visitors to ‘take a flight into the near future’ on a virtual airline. 12 illuminated aircraft window shapes each held a white 3D-printed object, creating a ‘journey’ around the space as visitors went from window to window. Each of the objects was an augmented reality trigger that launched video demos from the passenger’s POV. Videos were narratives showing how inflight broadband would unlock value for the airline from destination-specific shopping to a ‘virtual office’ for business travellers. The experience units were also installed at smaller specialist events, promoted via email.
Results. 600+ visitors used the experience, 25% of the global target decision-maker audience, which generated 250+ new leads. Pipeline secured as a result of engagement with Connected Air means the installation had a greater than 332:1 potential ROI. The Connected Air experience also attracted its own press coverage at APEX and AIX.
Team. Dominic Walters (VP Marketing Communications & Strategy) Inmarsat Aviation – Kat Patterson (Business Partner) OgilvyOne Business – Nik Myers (Strategy Director) OgilvyOne Business – James Sexton (Creative Partner) OgilvyOne Business – Matt Williams (Creative Partner) OgilvyOne Business – Ryan Rabinowitz (Business Director) OgilvyOne Business – Hitan Bhatt (Associate Design Director) OgilvyOne Business -Stephen Timms (Copywriter) OgilvyOne Business – Stuart Farquer (Art Director) OgilvyOne Business – Steve Williams (Art Director) OgilvyOne Business – Natasha Freedman (Copywriter) OgilvyOne Business – Rich Wilson (Digital Producer) OgilvyOne Business – Katherine Sheen (Senior Planner) OgilvyOne Business – Alex Farminer (Senior Digital Designer) OgilvyOne Business – Asif Khan (Creative) OgilvyOne Business.
Contributors. Jotta Studio (AR experience design), Intergalactic (AR app development).
Client: IKEA, ‘Handcrafted’.
Campaign overview. IKEA has 5.5 million members in its loyalty club, but not all of them were opted-in to receive their emails. They needed to find a compelling reason for them to sign up, delivered in a hands-on, creative way.
Strategy. Considering how they could build a stronger relationship with IKEA’s loyalty members, LIDA discovered the highest-spending segments of members were more valuable to IKEA, by at least £35 a year, if they are opted in to receive both mail and email. When they looked closer, they found that 1.3 million were currently only contactable by post. So, they needed to convince these members to sign up for email, to demonstrate that regular emails from IKEA FAMILY were worth signing up for. Members were given a further incentive to opt-into email communications via a £5 voucher.
Creativity. LIDA created a cross-stitched email that blurred the lines between online and offline. The team designed the email, to appear as if it were handmade. Visually, the email mirrored IKEA’s digital comms as closely as possible. The outer envelope referenced the email notification we are all familiar with on our mobile devices, with the headline ‘You have 1 unread message’. Once opened the ’email’ was revealed, with a message to encourage them to opt in to IKEA’s regular emails. The customer journey continued online, with the handcrafted feel evident from the sign-up process to the first welcome email. Memorable, unique and ‘handcrafted’, it gave members a hands-on demonstration of what to expect in their inbox, in a very IKEA way.
Results. Opt-in rates for members mailed exceeded expectations by more than 3%, with some 13% of recipients adding email to their contactable channel mix. A clearly signposted and incentivised CTA drove higher than anticipated volumes of unique campaign URL visits. Completion rates equating to the high opt-in volumes. Additionally, the higher than average redemption rates achieved with the monetary £5 incentive demonstrated the additional value and appeal perceived, when delivered through a brand-appropriate reward based creative message.
Team. Dan Wright (Senior Copywriter) LIDA – Andy Preston (Senior Art Director) LIDA – Vaughan Townsend (Creative Director) LIDA – Mily Williamson (Senior Planner) LIDA – Mirjami Qin (Designer) LIDA – Nizam Ali (Designer) LIDA – Dan French (Designer) LIDA – Nyig Tin (Designer) LIDA – Philippa Sidney (Project Director) LIDA – Eleanor Howle (Account Director) LIDA – Dani McManus (IKEA FAMILY/ Loyalty Manager UK & Ireland) IKEA.
ICLPClient: Hackett, Engagement Programme.
Campaign overview. Hackett had great relationships with their customers in store, but no data on them. Personalised to them, and entirely exclusive, they created a club to learn more about their clients’ needs.
Strategy. ICLP had to find an unobtrusive way of collecting data and enhancing the customer relationship with the brand – to create something truly personal and specific; a brand-appropriate in-store customer experience. It was also important to leverage the luxury partnerships the brand held, to offer truly unique Hackett experiences, rewards and benefits – this would be their unique selling point.
Creativity. ICLP created a modern version of an old-school gentleman’s club, for the digital age. An invitation-only experiential programme called Club 65B, named after the first Hackett store address. Store staff were provided with iPhone 6s, which empowered them with customer data to provide a truly personalised shopping experience, and a menu of rewards to treat customers. There are no plastic cards or apps or need for the customer to fill in forms or identify themselves. The staff collect minimum personal details as well as data such as clothing sizes, and simply ask customers if they are part of the programme on subsequent visits. The layer of opportunity to attend bespoke partnership events such as Aston Martin drive days, exclusive wine tastings, tennis, rowing and polo invites across four countries all year round, adding to the exclusivity of the club.
Results. The programme generated an ROI of £137.50 to £1. From November to July, staff signed up 60,000 customers with no promotion, just by invitation across 33 stores in four countries: UK, Spain, France and Germany. Members have a 169% higher ATV than non-programme members.
Team. Mark Blenkinsopp (Chief Marketing Officer) Pepe Jeans and Hackett – Hugo Tapia Frade (Head of Customer Strategy and CRM) Hackett – Dawn Hemingway (Head of Data Analytics and Operations) ICLP – Nick Fletcher (Head of Strategy) ICLP – Lynne Joiner (Product Manager) Future Loyalty ICLP – Inge Burger (Group Account Director) ICLP – Jason De Winne (General Manager) ICLP – Chris McCarthy (Lead Consultant) ICLP – Zoe Senior (Client Services Director) ICLP – Lee Garrington (Technical Lead) ICLP – Oliver Donald (.net Technical Lead) ICLP – Fiona Russell (Account Director) ICLP – Kristina Bobovnicka (Account Manager) ICLP – Christian Kingston (Planner) ICLP – Sam Killip (Senior Data Strategist) ICLP.
Client: Royal London, How search found the real brand.
Campaign overview. Misleading customers was never Royal London’s intention. The brief was to increase PPC sales on branded keywords – their most efficient campaigns – to protect the brand and lead customers down the right path.
Strategy. Increased competition in the sector was taking its toll on the brand. This meant customers were being led here, there and everywhere across the web. Spark Foundry and Performics’ aim was to protect Royal London’s Search Engine Results Pages. Efficiency in the PPC spend would also need to come from an integrated approach.
The team knew that branded search was strongly influenced by the success of TV and Door Drop channels, which also drove pretender websites to infringe on branded keywords. Data driven bidding need to be deployed in order to create change.
Creativity. Understanding the importance of dependability, the team set about creating trustworthy clicks. That meant multi-variant testing ad copy to increase CTR and authority within the London’s Search Engine Results Pages across all devices.
Results. Keyword level ad copy optimisation increased CTR by 12% and conversion rate by 32% alone. Following this, year-on-year branded CPCs reduced by 35%, sales increased 47%, with CPAs lowered by 53%.
Team. David Meliveo (Head of Marketing & Promotions) Royal London – Marta Gonzalez (Acquisition Marketing Lead) Royal London – Dhiresh Hirani (Marketing Manager – Digital) Royal London – Ajay Solanki (e-Business Lead) Royal London – Malcolm Torrance (Data & Marketing Science Lead) Royal London – Tim Diviny (Copywriter) Royal London – Dominic Macon-Cooney (Senior Marketing Manager – Acquisition) Royal London – Fabian Alvarez (Senior Conversion & Analytics Manager) Royal London – Matt Sanderson (Ebusiness Conversion Analyst) Royal London – John Davies (e-Business Content Manager) Royal London – Mark Barrett (Art Director Elmtree) Creative.
Client: PayPal, ‘Payback Made Easy’.
Campaign overview. Paypal wanted to show how easy it is to pay friends back for the things we owe them.
Strategy. App users are valuable PayPal customers, as they diversify product penetration beyond basic check-out. To drive downloads, this campaign would need to highlight the ‘Send Money’ button within the app, as the easiest way to repay friends and family. 1 in 3 Brits has fallen out with a friend over money, according to the Lotto Land survey, 2015. Insight showed that Brits owed money are unlikely to chase an outstanding IOU, they might lose a friend rather than face the awkwardness. This prompted RAPP UK to reconsider PayPal’s audience, and appeal to those owing a debt. The audience insight was that they could offer those with a guilty conscience an easy way to clear it. 
Creativity. The ‘Send Money’ button makes repayment easy. RAPP UK saw the chance to dramatise situations where IOUs have gone unpaid; forgetfulness, reticence and procrastination. RAPP UK turned each of these into a film, to prick the conscience of people with different reasons for delaying repayment. Rather than evoke guilt, they played up the humour of the situation. To drive views in social channels, they added a comic tone by playing on the dual meaning of payback: meaning to settle a debt, or to settle a score. To drive clicks, they included a clear call to action and included a product demonstration to show how simple the app is. The campaign landing page took this demo further. Simple Boomerang reminders were created to retarget film viewers and web page visitors.
Results. The campaign generated 41,616 directly attributable app downloads, and 16,078 guilty people settled a debt with a friend, with a ‘Send Money’ transaction directly attributable to the campaign.
Team. Ben Golik (Executive Creative Director) RAPP UK – Lily Peters (Copywriter) RAPP UK – Tom Kennedy (Art Director) RAPP UK – Aimee Bryan (Planning Partner) RAPP UK Michael Ogundare Planner RAPP UK Katrina Bain Business Partner RAPP UK Kallula Dixon Senior Account Manager RAPP UK Ryan Brady Agency Producer RAPP UK.
Contributors. Havas Media Group (Media Agency), Horton-Stephens (Production Company).
Client: Fiat, ‘Fiat Spider Autogazzetta’.
Campaign overview. Inspired by the original Italian 1960s Fiat Spider, the launch for the newest Fiat 124 Spider had to pay tribute to its heritage. A step back in time to 1960s’ Italy – on paper – did that.
Strategy. Research revealed the market for sports cars in this price range was hugely cluttered. Krow had to find a way to bypass consideration of the rival marques completely. The team identified an attitudinal target that they named ‘Generation Me’ because they were all at a stage in their lives, pre- or post-family, where life was all about them. Their car choice was not going to be driven by practical needs; they were looking for a car that was going to emotionally satisfy them. So Krow had to unlock the culture and style evoked by Italy in the 1960s; cool, confident and liberated. The target audience also had a decidedly old-school media approach to getting their car information. They read and subscribed to car magazines, looking to trusted big-name magazine reviews to make choices.
Creativity. A replica of an actual 1960s magazine was created, featuring a glowing review of the original Fiat 124 Spider. The team used AutoCar articles and photography for their 1960s Fiat 124 Spider review, re-designing, laying out and printing the magazine in exactly the same way it would have been done in the 60s, with paper stock and font evocative of the period. The first half of the magazine showed the 1960s model, transitioning in the centre spread to the new Fiat 124 Spider, using content that showed how the new model was the inheritor of the legendary mantle.
Results. 2221 DM packs were mailed out at a total cost to client including artwork, postage, print and image usage, of £18,741. As a result of the campaign, 40 Fiat 124 Spiders were bought, resulting in £781,800 in sales, and 20 other Fiat models were bought, resulting in £228,305 in sales. Hence, a 2.7% conversion to sale. The fact that an alternative Fiat model was purchased by some recipients after receiving the DM promoting the flagship vehicle in the range, shows the magazine was a piece of communication that re-connected people with Fiat as a whole.
Team. Tristan Marshall (Creative) krow – Ed Shore (Creative) krow – Nick Hastings (Executive Creative Director) krow – Mark Reeves (Print Production) krow – Emma Christmas (Senior Account Director) krow – Rosie Morahan (Senior Account Manager) krow – Mark Coldham (Project Management) krow – David Brady (Typographer) krow.
ElvisClient: Mondelez – Cadbury. ‘Creme Egg Hunting Season’.
Campaign overview. Helping the public fall back in love with a Cadbury classic and launching for a limited time only, Cadbury went about creating a season dedicated to the famous egg to generate sales fast.
Strategy. Rather than letting the fact that Creme Egg would only be on the shelf for a few months of the year limit the brand, Elvis used it to drive desirability, and crucially, urgency to purchase, by inventing a whole new season: Cadbury Creme Egg Hunting Season. Each touchpoint created would tell separate chapters of the same story of Creme Egg Hunting Season. This would enable Cadbury to drive top of mind awareness and maintain active emotional engagement. All supported by an integrated campaign platform, driving people into store.
Creativity. The TV ad, staring Gregg, the brand’s passionate Head Hunter, officially launched the brand new season, making the announcement from his mobile hunting HQ: The Creme Egg Hunter’s Lodge. Facebook and Instagram were then used to drive reach on social media with launch content created specifically for the mobile newsfeed. Greg toured the country to spread the word, immersing fans in the new world. Exclusive Cadbury Creme Egg recipes were also shared. Snapchat recruited an army of Cadbury Creme Egg Hunters through the use of an interactive lens that gave people’s selfies an animated twist.
Results. The campaign reached 89% of Cadbury Creme Egg’s total audience and increased positive brand sentiment to the highest it’s ever been on social media at 84%. There were 318 pieces of organic press coverage around the campaign, in publications such as Time Out, Cosmopolitan, The Evening Standard and Buzzfeed. Brand uplift studies on Facebook, YouTube and Snapchat show that the content shifted recall and favourability, showing the positive effect it had on people. The new creative idea excited retailers, helping strengthen distribution and securing impactful, highly visible in-store activity. Sainsbury’s even requested a bespoke experience so people could get involved in Creme Egg Hunting Season in their stores. The total brand grew by 12% (RSV 1 Jan to 16 April 2017 IRI).
Team. Neale Horrigan (Creative Director) Elvis – Rob Griffiths (Art Director) Elvis – James Hudson (Copywriter) Elvis – Camilla Yates (Senior Planner) Elvis – Caroline Davison (Client Services Director) Elvis – Claire Smith (Account Manager) Elvis – Fallon Kirkham (Lead Creative Producer) Elvis.
Contributors. Xquisite Experiential (production), Stink TV (Production).
Client: Lexus UK, ‘Prime Your Senses’.
Campaign overview. Lexus had just undergone a huge brand shift and was now launching the new LC model. The brief was to excite prospects about a car that was 14 months from being ready to test drive.
Strategy. The new Lexus brand positioning was that of a modern luxury lifestyle brand, appealing to a discerning audience who crave experiences more than ownership alone. DigitasLBi knew that to really excite their audience in a category crowded with beautifully shot commercials and high spec feature lists, they had to give them a taste of what owning one would feel like. The strategy was to create a stronger emotional connection with the LC by giving prospective owners an experience of the car that would excite their senses, in the same way a test drive does.
Creativity. The idea was to focus attention on the details of the car, by removing any visual distractions; creating an experience purely through sound. By delivering the LC Sound Tour through a mobile site, DigitasLBi further enhanced the experience. Personalised URLs allowed them to tailor the script to each recipient, and high fidelity headphones sent out in a beautiful mail pack created a more intimate experience for the hottest prospects. The script primed the listeners’ senses with a series of low frequency sounds; bird calls and outdoor ambience, to ensure they primed listeners’ ears to pick up the subtlety of hearing the LC’s more refined interior features. This gave the last and most exciting sound – the 10-speed V8 engine – even more impact. The experience closed with a brief glimpse of the LC at full throttle, to leave them wanting more and a relevant CTA.
Results. The campaign helped generate sales revenue of more than £1.4m from those who received the comms. Creating a simple experience based on sound rather than visuals meant a low production budget generating an ROI of 750%. Email communications out-performed targets by a significant margin too, with open rates of 50.5%, 67% above target and click-through of 36.2%, 73% above target.
Team. Mark Benton (CRM Manager) Lexus UK – Jake Richards (Business Director) DigitasLbi – Jason Fletcher (Executive Creative Director) Publicis London – Tim Clegg (Executive Creative Director) DigitasLbi – Mark Teece (Copywriter) DigitasLbi – David Finch (Art Director) DigitasLbi – Craig Hawkes Project (Director) DigitasLbi – Chris Petts (Project Manager) DigitasLbi – Alexandra King (Account Director) DigitasLbi – Tom Jeffery (Senior Digital Designer) DigitasLbi – Darren Wood (Creative Director) DigitasLbi – Mark Chivers (Junior Designer) DigitasLbi.
Contributors. August Media (Technology partner).
Client: Co-op Funeralcare, ‘Leaving them something that they will appreciate’.
Campaign overview. Co-op banished black ties and sad faces to discuss funeral planning – powered by British humour.
Strategy. In order to understand the challenges faced by their own customers, Co-op staff planned their own funerals – a ‘method planning’ approach and one that yielded crucial insights. Any Co-op product had to be simple and reliable – hence the promise to guarantee full funeral cover. While representing the human side of the funeral-planning process, Co-op built something light-hearted; the aim being to stand out and persuade people of the idea of putting money aside for a funeral.
Creativity. The pitch of humour had to be right. So Co-op brought their strategic thinking to life by crafting a fun, popular message that was born out of a common truth about funerals: that people leave behind them the strangest things. Supported by the campaign and product message ‘Leave your loved ones something they will appreciate – no surprise funeral bills’, the work captured real people cast in real-life scenarios. Press and DM executions featured a lady in her living room at home, surrounded by a porcelain cat collection. And a DRTV ad featured a train-enthusiast grandfather telling his underwhelmed family they could look after his huge collection of toy trains when was gone. The film content was popular, with additional content created for social – and the executions gave Co-op stand-out performance in sales.
Results. The brand tracker showed Co-op’s DRTV creative had a 10% increase in persuasion versus the old-style brand advertising. The work also delivered a 6% increase on key message take out. There was an overall increase of 69% year-on-year sales – proof that a light-hearted campaign can work in the funeral space, as Co-op’s market share in pre-need funeral plans increased by 45%.
Team. Neame Ingram (Executive Creative Director) PSONA – Ellie Gauci (Executive Strategy Director) PSONA – Sion Jones (Senior Account Manager) PSONA – Harriet Elsom (Business Director) PSONA – Peter Turnbull (Head of Design) PSONA.
Client: VERY / Shop Direct, ‘A Very Dynamic Black Friday’.
Campaign overview. VERY needed to engage Black Friday high-street shoppers in an innovative and dynamic way. By pushing relevant products at the right time, they could drive people online on the busiest digital retail day of the year.
Strategy. The Very.co.uk shopper is fun-loving, vivacious and active. Although she loves to shop online and engages in social, she still regularly frequents the high street. Research shows that 28% of all Christmas shoppers purchase at least one present on Black Friday, with total spend on the day accounting for 18% of all digital retail sales in the year. However, digital retail sales remain quite small, with the ONS estimating them accounting for only 14% of total UK sales for fashion and department stores. Posterscope knew that if VERY wanted to maximise sales, they needed to be on the physical high street. In order to secure a high street presence, Posterscope’s strategy was to use OOH sites as VERY ‘shop windows’, to create brand awareness and drive the audience online, during the key Black Friday retail period.
Creativity. Posterscope’s approach was to put a digital department store on the high street, but with one key difference. They ‘dynamically’ altered VERY’s pricing throughout the day, in response to stock levels and trading deals being conducted in real time. The team identified shopping hotspots across the UK using mobile browsing data, pinpointing the high streets their audience would be heading to. They then dominated digital 6-sheets in those strategically valuable shopping hotspots. They used VERY’s own first-party data, split by region, to serve in real-time Black Friday deal messages based on what was most popular on VERY’s site, in that postcode. During a period where many digital retailers push for prime OOH positions at crippling expense, this creative content visually conveyed the behind the scenes data to serve digitally savvy consumers relevant content in real-time, thereby creating brand presence and driving the audience online.
Results. VERY’s online site traffic rose 20%, market share doubled in key electronics categories and ROI was up 100% (YoY).
Team. Anishka Fernando (Client Strategy Director) Posterscope – Eleanor Mitchell (Account Director) Vizeum – Andrew Roscoe (Head of Brand) Shop Direct Group – Nina Heyes (Brand & Advertising) Shop Direct Group.
Client: IBM, ‘#WhatMakesGreat’
Campaign overview. Leveraging IBM’s position as IT Supplier at The Championships, ‘Watson’ is the AI pundit with the ability to uncover unforeseen patterns in tennis. Audiences were invited to interact with the system to answer ‘what makes a great player?’.
Strategy. The opportunity given to OgilvyOne was to ‘do for tennis what Watson can do for business’ with the aim of demonstrating Watson, IBM’s AI platform, in action; the challenge was to uncover new tennis insight that was both engaging and interactive. With a growing realisation among business people that structured data alone rarely leads to new perspectives, the aim was to show Watson could combine and analyse huge volumes of structured and unstructured information. From there, the system could understand and learn to deliver breakthrough insight for businesses, helping people make better decisions. Wimbledon, where IBM is Information Technology Supplier, provided a platform with great reach into business minds, in a more emotive setting. Increasing familiarity with Watson and generating engagement across a series of platforms helped deepen the understanding of the benefits the system, eventually leading them to trial selected products.
Creativity. By studying 22 years of sports commentary, reading 11.2 million words, combined with 28 years of statistics and the perspectives of coaches and ex-players, Watson became Wimbledon’s first AI tennis pundit. With the ability to understand and express insight in human terms, the system inspired audiences, including fans, players and journalists, both at Wimbledon and across digital, provoking them to interact and debate using the hashtag #WhatMakesGreat. The digital experience was delivered through DOOH, banners, Telegraph partnership and social posts. Watson’s insights were shared on everything from Facebook live videos to daily debates on Wimbledon.com. Through the tournament, the system continued to learn, using the debate to reveal further insight and reacting ‘in the moment’ to live action.
From the second week, those who had engaged were re-targeted with banners inviting them to IBM webpages with further information on the system.
Results. The campaign generated 2,094,017 engagements in total, beating the objective set to achieve more than one million engagements by 100%. These actions included 308,561 banner clicks, 868,857 video views and social interaction peaking at 613, 852 engagements. There was also a shift in familiarity with Watson of 18%, matched with significant shifts in brand perceptions, with +17% considering IBM to be an innovative company, and +31% of audiences considering them to be a relatable business. Deep level engagement was achieved across articles with page viewing 20% higher than the benchmark at an average viewing time of 2 minutes and 20 seconds and a 54% scroll depth.
Team. Samantha Hagans (Account Director) Ogilvy – Francois Camilleri (Project Manager) Ogilvy – Jamie Romain (Art Director) Ogilvy – Dan Shone (Copywriter) Ogilvy – Charlie Wilson (Executive Creative Director) Ogilvy – Nina Mynk (Planning Partner) Ogilvy – Gareth Richards (Group Managing Partner) Ogilvy – Clayton Gray (Head of Design) Ogilvy – Sian Hughes (Associate Design Director) Ogilvy – Cheryl Clarke (Advertising and Brand Lead) IBM – Sam Seddon (Wimbledon and RFU Client & Programme Executive) IBM – Sarah Warsaw (Brand Systems Digital Lead) IBM – Kate Taylor (Advertising & Brand Systems) IBM – Justina Gilbert (European Digital and Social Marketing Leader) IBM – Lisa Hicks (Digital Marketing & Social Media Leader UKI) IBM.
Contributors. Group M Media (Planning and Buying), Frameworks (Partner Content Agency), TVF (Production Agency).
Client: Virgin Trains East Coast, ‘The most tailored journey ever created. Ever.’
Campaign overview. A smooth and stress-free train journey; it’s the stuff of dreams. Virgin Trains East Coast wanted to utilise everything they knew about their customers to deliver a deeply personalised, end-to-end experience.
Strategy. Virgin Trains had invested heavily in sophisticated technology to create one-to-one experiences for their customers. They carried out customer experience research, 68 hours of footage captured with 61 customers, which identified the major pain points for customers, such as uncertainty about tickets, understanding First Class offerings and ensuring their reservation info was at their fingertips. Fully utilising the data capability, TMW Unlimited’s strategy segmented bookers and ensured the comms programme flexed and responded to individual booking behaviour. Segments were based on their customer data history, for example, whether the customer was a first-time booker or whether they had visited their destination previously. An additional layer of personalisation would allow customers to select the information they wanted in subsequent emails, creating a truly one-to-one email experience.
Creativity. A clear modular template allowed the enormous amount of variable content to be easily targeted, with an unmistakably Virgin tone of voice. The programme began with an email entitled ‘Your journey. Your rules’. This allowed customers to select which information they wanted to receive in future emails. For those travelling with children, a specific email was designed to overcome associated anxieties that come with parenthood. Closer to departure, specific information around the station and at the station was communicated. The day before and on the day of travel, communications focused on the customer’s outbound journey, with a handy SMS with a reservation reminder also sent on the day of travel. Finally, customers returning home who had suffered a poor experience were sent an email to mitigate negative feeling.
Results. The increase in engagement with the emails saw a 28% increase in CTR over the previous unsegmented version, illustrating the impact of the new approach. Virgin Trains has also seen a large volume of positive customer comments since the launch.
Team. Lizzie Shlosberg (Account Director) TMW Unlimited – Sally Schumacher (Data Planning Director) TMW Unlimited – Kelly Glover (Senior Account Manager) TMW Unlimited – Emma Lester (Business Director) TMW Unlimited – Kate Wheaton (Strategy Director) TMW Unlimited – Richard Colville (Planner) TMW Unlimited – Dave Willis (Creative Group Head) TMW Unlimited – Luke Clark (Creative Group Head) TMW Unlimited – Lorena Teruel (Associate Design Director) TMW Unlimited – Stephanie Martin (Designer) TMW Unlimited – Claire (Cardosi Head of CEM) Virgin Trains East Coast – Angela McKenzie (CRM Campaign Manager) Virgin Trains East Coast – Jane Winton (CRM Manager) Virgin Trains East Coast – Mark Jones (Client Engagement Lead) Merkle Comet – Mark Shuttleworth (Operations Lead) Merkle Comet – Petar Lafchiev (Campaign Build) Merkle Comet – Daniela Moraes (Campaign QA) Merkle Comet.
Client: National Trust, ‘Recruit to Retain’.
Campaign overview. For nearly two decades, the National Trust had offered big discounts to encourage new members. New, emotive stories had to be told to create valued memberships that were going to last.
Strategy. Money raised from membership makes up 53% of the brand’s total supporter income. But there was a problem. Too many new members weren’t renewing. The decision was made to shift focus to put value, not price cuts, at the heart of the acquisition strategy. Medialab Group employed conjoint analysis to explore incentive options in place of a discount, like offering new members a £15 National Trust gift card, or a pair of binoculars. This analysis showed that incentives matter, but it was clear the value of these incentives mattered less than previously thought. The removal of discounts followed a robust testing period, assessing the impact of dropping discounts across all acquisition channels for short periods. Then, via a phased approach, the team stopped discounts across digital completely.
Creativity. Creative and media planning was closely aligned to a nature-focused brand TV ad, to help build an emotional connection to the National Trust. Medialab Group also implemented the use of more online channels, allowing for dynamic testing of creative concepts and approaches, which supported the creative testing carried out via the offline channels. A lighter format door drop pack was developed. Two-stage prospecting activity, where people are incentivised to provide their email address and to opt-in to future communications in return for National Trust content, was also tested. The website was optimised with increased emphasis on the ‘Join Online’ journey promoting direct debit sign ups, thus aiding retention and also opening up membership to wider socio-economic groups.
Team. Will Davis (Group Planning Director) Medialab Group – Felicity Dickson (Business Director) Medialab Group – Owen Taylor (Business Director) Medialab Group – James Taylor (Senior Account Director) Medialab Group – Jenny Browne (Membership Acquisition Programme Lead) National Trust – Natalie King (Senior Marketing Campaign Executive) National Trust – Ian Oxley (Head of Membership) Recruitment National Trust – Mike Evermy (Head of Direct Membership Recruitment) National Trust – Melanie Nursaw (Membership Retention Manager) National Trust.
Contributors. Mindshare Brand (Media Agency and Conjoint Analysis).
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Trained as a journalist from the age of 18 and enjoying a long career in regional newspaper reporting and editing, Sally Hooton joined DMI (Direct Marketing International) magazine as editor in 2001. DMI then morphed into The GMA, taking her with it!
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