Masters of Marketing Awards 2017: The sector winners

Marketing Week’s Masters of Marketing Awards took place at London’s Tobacco Dock last night (3 October). The biggest
 of their kind in the UK, the awards cover everything in marketing from strategy through to execution.

Click below to see the winners of the channel awards and the special categories, including ‘brand of the year’ and ‘marketer of the year’.

Masters of Marketing Awards 2017: The specials winners
Masters of Marketing Awards 2017: The channel winners

Automotive

Winning brand: Nissan Europe
Project name: Nissan X-Trail 4Dogs
Entering agency: Performance Communications

Nissan wanted to reposition its seven-seat X-Trail model from one aimed at ‘adventure seekers’ to focus on ‘active families’. The car brand savvily tapped into a simple insight around dog ownership: 30% of the target audience own a dog and 90% of them consider their pet as much a part of the family as their children. A PR and social media campaign was developed around a canine-friendly concept vehicle: the Nissan X-Trail 4Dogs. It provided the biggest organic social media reach ever for Nissan globally, and the biggest spike in Google searches for the model.

Business-to-business

Winning brand: Baxi Heating
Project name: The Rebuilding of Baxi Works Loyalty Scheme for Gas Installers

Heating systems brand Baxi wanted to engage trade customers with its loyalty scheme as part of an overall drive to increase engagement, reduce manual administration tasks, drive sales and increase customer retention. The new insight-led Baxi Works site focuses on what its customers really value in a loyalty scheme. With the onus firmly on prioritising, supporting and rewarding customers, Baxi Works incorporates many features that benefit and help installers in their work. It provides simple-to-use, personalised communications and is accessible on mobile.

Charities and non-profit

Winning brand: NHS Blood and Transplant
Project name: Missing Type International
Entering agency: Engine

Blood donor organisations around the world are desperate to reverse a downward trend in donations. With its 2015 Missing Type campaign garnering huge levels of interest, NHS Blood and Transplant once again set out to remove the letters in famous physical and digital landmarks to underline the lack of A, O and B blood donors. In August 2016, it launched its successful Missing Type campaign in partnership with global donor organisations. Over 1,500 brands joined the movement via their social media channels and the emotive campaign has seen new blood donor registrations more than double in several countries.

Consumer goods

Winning brand: Maltesers
Project name: Look on the Light Side of Disability
Entering agency: AMVBBDO

The Mars-owned brand has achieved what is seen by some in marketing as the holy grail – doing well by doing good. After winning Channel 4’s competition for £1m-worth of free commercial airtime during the 2016 Paralympics, Maltesers has built differentiation into its brand by putting inclusivity at the heart of its positioning. The first and most successful result was ‘Look on the Light Side of Disability’ campaign, which featured disabled people in everyday situations discussing awkward encounters and experiences. The campaign, which sought to highlight the place of disability in society, was the brand’s most successful in more than 10 years.

Financial services

Winning brand: SunLife
Project name: Welcome To Life After 50

 

The over-50s represent a huge revenue opportunity for business yet research shows this market feels misunderstood by brands, unhappy with how they are represented in advertising and not well catered for. SunLife launched an integrated campaign, ‘Welcome to life after 50’, which ran across TV, radio, print, social, content and PR, connecting with consumers by challenging stereotypes of the over-50s market. As a result, brand awareness among the target over-50s reached 87%, while brand consideration had increased by 8% by the end of the campaign.

Highly commended: Wesleyan’s ‘Educating teachers about retirement planning’

Media, gaming and entertainment

Winning brand: Channel 4
Project name: Rio 2016 Paralympics – We’re the Superhumans
Entering agency: 4Creative

In order to attract viewers to its coverage of the 2016 Rio Paralympics, Channel 4 needed to inspire the UK to change the way it thought and felt about disability. Channel 4’s ‘We’re the Superhumans’ strategy was celebratory and unapologetic with a campaign that smashed viewing targets and changed the nation’s attitudes towards disability for the better. Channel 4’s Paralympics coverage was watched by 27.2 million people. Against all the odds, viewing share among 25- to 34-year-olds was up 5% on London 2012.

Public sector and government

Winning brand: Sheffield Hallam University
Project name: The Sheffield Hallam Video Playbook

In order to compete effectively in an increasingly competitive higher education market, Sheffield Hallam University set about developing a strategy to increase applications and, crucially, acceptances. Its 2016 Sheffield Hallam Video Playbook series of videos showcased compelling stories of Sheffield Hallam students and graduates and achieved impressive results. The project garnered significant engagement on social media, traffic to the university’s website increased by 30% compared to the previous year’s pre-clearing period and acceptances through clearing increased by 16% from 2015.

Retail and ecommerce

Winning brand: Adidas Football
Project name: Breaking the Pattern with Adidas GLITCH
Entering agency: Possible, iris Worldwide

Adidas wanted to attract an audience of hard-to-reach urban footballers. In 2016, after developing and testing its new GLITCH boot product with a community of young players, it launched through an invite-only mobile sales channel. Significant buzz was generated through social and word of mouth, seeded by the GLITCH community. The GLITCH app has had over 60,000 downloads in the first six months, with codes seeded by the first influencers achieving a 75% conversion rate to a boot sale.

Highly commended: Aldi’s 5 Year Plan

Telecoms, energy and utilities

Winning brand: Northumbrian Water
Project name: Dwaine Pipe/Love your Drain Campaign

Water companies spend millions each year on clearing avoidable blockages from drains and sewers. In a campaign aimed at changing customer behaviour, Northumbrian Water set out to reduce blockages in its northern customer area by 10% and in other ‘hotspot’ areas by 20%. The campaign included Dwaine Pipe animations; a smartphone game and event marketing such as a Dwaine Christmas Carol Concert. It has reduced blockages in the target area by 46% overall.

Travel, leisure and transport

Winning brand: Visit Belfast
Project name: Find Your Belfast

Tourism portal Visit Belfast aims to generate sustainable tourism growth for the city. In 2016, it set out to provide compelling reasons to visit and drive footfall and spend during the key autumn and Christmas trading periods. Its above and below the line ‘Find Your Belfast’ campaign included a Christmas TV ad, an online Advent Calendar and a Snapchat geofilter. The campaign had a resounding impact on the city with £10.2m spent by visitors in the local economy during the autumn period and £32.6m at Christmas.