2018 Award Winners: Grand Prix and Chairmans Awards

Following our Effective Mobile Marketing Awards Ceremony last night, we are running daily previews of all the winners over the next couple of weeks, starting today with the winners of the two big ones, the Grand Prix Award and the Chairman’s Award.

Grand Prix Award: Very.co.uk and Fetch – Winning the Christmas Retail Race on the Second Screen

Christmas is the most important time of the year for Very.co.uk, with a significant percentage of its annual sales coming in during the October-to-December period, which ramps up from Black Friday to the end of the year sales. Lacking the budget of Argos, Currys or John Lewis, Very decided that it’s smartest approach to TV advertising would be to win the race for the second screen: mobile.

During the Christmas 2017 period, Very.co.uk took several steps to ensure it would ‘win Christmas’ on the second screen. Mobile ads served on target customers’ favourite apps were synchronised with TV campaigns by Very and its competitors, with gamified rich media units used to engage customers. Spotify playlists with ‘party’ in the name were targeted with audio advertising, performance activity was used throughout November and December to convert sales, and geo-targeting and location-based strategies were used to target busy shoppers in Very’s target audiences.

The campaign was highly successful, smashing Very.co.uk’s target for year-on-year sales growth by almost three times. 73 per cent of seasonal online sales came via mobile, while second screening activity boosted brand awareness by 10 per cent. The integrated strategy managed to break through the noise of other retailers’ promotions and reached key target audiences in the moments that really mattered. For all of this, in addition to winning two other categories, this campaign also took the Grand Prix Award.

Judges’ View: “The fact that Very.co.uk triumphed in two very strong individual categories speaks volumes for the thought that went into this very well-executed campaign, and the results it delivered. In a year in which the Awards saw some great entries, this one deservedly takes the ultimate accolade.”

Chairman’s Award: Auto Trader – #AutoTraderGoals
Chair of the Judging Panel David Murphy chose this clever, disruptive campaign as his favourite from all this year’s entries.

Seeking to capitalise on the excitement around the World Cup, the #AutoTraderGoals used an ambitious multi-channel campaign, played out across mobile and social media to engage second screeners. The campaign sought to boost and broaden the brand’s social following, while also driving visits to the Auto Trader website and reaching a wide audience by connecting the brand with the World Cup.

The campaign focused on a contest to win a brand-new car for every goal England scored during the World Cup, with entrants using the #AutoTraderGoals hashtag on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to be in with a chance of winning. The contest was promoted with a cross-channel campaign that included digital out-of-home, print, paid social and more, and during the matches themselves, the team behind the campaign assembled a ‘war room’ of social staff to produce content, comment on events and respond to replies.

The contest resulted in #AutoTraderGoals trending in the top 10 for the UK after every goal, with Auto Trader achieving a 62 per cent share of voice on Twitter across its competitor set during the tournament, outperforming official sponsors. The hashtag was used over 270,000 times, with over 160,000 individual engagements, and gained Auto Trader just under 25,000 new followers. Tremendous numbers.

Chairman’s View: “Very clever in the way it effectively – but legally – hijacked World Cup sponsorship to engage with audiences on social. Mischievously disruptive and highly successful.”

You can see details of all the winning entries here