Following last week’s Effective Mobile Marketing Awards Ceremony, we continue our round-up of the winning campaign in each category with a look at the winners in the Most Innovative Campaign, Most Effective Location Campaign and Most Effective Cross-screen Campaign Categories.

Most Innovative Campaign: Marmite and AnalogFolk – Marmite TasteFace

Previously, Marmite had used its digital channels to drive cultural relevance and provide product information, but with its TasteFace campaign, the brand was looking to find a way to leverage these channels, and mobile in particular, to increase the amount of people actually trying Marmite. The TasteFace campaign focused on asking consumers to test whether they had “the Marmite Gene”, and working with AnalogFolk, the team created a responsive web app that used facial recognition to analyse user reactions to Marmite when they tasted it.

The web app was built using the Microsoft Emotion API, which can recognise facial expressions across eight key emotions. Using the web app, consumers could request a free sample and then take the TasteFace test, analysing their reaction to provide them with a score, as well as GIF of their unique reaction that could be shared on social media.

So far, Marmite has distributed over 150,000 samples as part of the campaign, with 550,000 people visiting the TasteFace microsite, spending an average of 3.75 minutes exploring the content there. During the campaign, Marmite sales in Tescos increased by a massive 60 per cent, and the campaign also provided the brand with extensive information on consumers, particularly geographic location and taste preferences, all of which can be used in subsequent campaigns. The judges loved the on-brand execution of this campaign and, of course, the results.

Judges’ View: “Achieved a lot and used mobile to drive shareability, but also physical sampling and collection of customer data to drive future insights. Also used AR to good effect, providing a lot of fun for people of all ages.”

There was also a Highly Commended award in this category. That went to Mubaloo for The World’s First Alexa-powered, Interactive Ad Unit, designed to enable people to try Alexa for themselves before buying an Echo device.

The campaign was delivered through bespoke display ad units delivered through programmatic partners, and native advertising placements through partnerships with OATH and TAN ad networks, and delivered great results.

Judges View: “The thinking here – effectively allowing mass early adopters to test a new technology that they are sceptical of, in order to increase purchase consideration – is inspired. Difficult to get a real view at the end of the funnel but this wasnt the goal; it was more engagement and trust based, very clever.”

Most Effective Location Campaign: Currys PC World, GroundTruth and Blue449 – Currys PC World Prospecting and Retargeting campaign
As the UK’s largest electrical retailer, Currys PC World (CPCW) has digital innovative technology running through its core, and was keen to leverage what mobile location could do for its omnichannel marketing efforts, driving people into stores and delivering measurable return on ad spend. While 32 per cent of customers consider mobile the most important device for research, 70 per cent are still purchasing in-store, demonstrating that the linear customer journey has changed. This led CPCW to a campaign focused on producing verified results proving the effectiveness of online-to-offline marketing.

Media agency Blue449 worked with GroundTruth to build key audiences based on both current location and location history, as well as shopping behaviours and other data insights. Once audiences had been identified, compelling creative was produced that focused on driving incremental footfall, and the team worked to develop a tool that could more clearly measure the impact of digital activity on store visits.

The data led approach, coupled with the newly-built measurement tool, enabled CPCW to successfully boost footfall in stores and deliver a seamless online-to-offline experience. The mobile-location strategy alone drove 12.4 per cent incremental footfall to stores, and the new measurement tool was used across all digital activity, providing a much clearer picture of how the campaign was affecting in-store spending. This ability to tie online advertising to offline spend is something many retailers struggle with, so for that, this well thought-out campaign took the award.

Judges’ View: “The strategy for this campaign was developed from clear insight regarding shopping behaviour. It also showed good use of location data, and real innovation in integration with DoubleClick Campaign Manager for the measurement piece.”

Most Effective Cross-screen Campaign: 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. In addition to this category, this campaign also took the award for the Most Effective Retail/FMCG Campaign, and the Grand Prix Award.

Judges View: “Rather than compete head-to-head with bigger-spending competitors, this campaign deployed smarter use of creative, audience understanding and insight to target consumers on their mobile in the run-up to Christmas, with outstanding results.”

You can see details of all the winning entries here.