Last Thursday, a collection of brands, agencies and media partners gathered at The Ham Yard Hotel in Soho to celebrate the 2018 World Media Awards. Hosted by the World Media Group, the awards returned for their third instalment, recognising the most effective cross-platform, cross-border, content-driven advertising campaigns from the past year.
A panel of 24 senior jurors from leading advertisers, agencies and publishers, presided over by four head judges, selected the eight category winners and overall Grand Prix winner from the many entries that were received from around the world. Figaro Digital were invited to attend the exclusive ceremony, and here we recap the winning campaigns.
Shell won the Corporate Influencer category and also picked up the Grand Prix prize for its ‘Shell Brand GravityLight and Bedtime Stories‘ campaign created by MediaCom. The campaign was in conjunction with GravityLight, a foundation which aims to improve the lives of people without electricity by providing clean, safe, and affordable lighting. They embarked on a 50-day GravityLight roadshow across Kenya, using video and social media to capture and share their progress. They created animated videos of GravityLight ‘bedtime stories’ told by high profile influencers, such as singers Pixie Lott in the UK and Luan Santana in Brazil, which achieved over 270 million views in under six weeks – all of which created strong consumer connections globally and transformed brand perceptions.
First in the Automotive category was Porsche with its ‘Cayman vs Drones‘ campaign, worked on by PHD Germany. The German car giants wanted to target a younger audience with their new model in a lower price segment, and partnered with YouTube gamer Ali A to do so. They developed an ambitious and original strategy and produced a video that showcased a Porsche 718 Cayman racing against a swarm of drones, which was published on YouTube. Not only did they pick up the award on the night, this bold approach increased brand awareness by 10 per cent among their desired target market, with their video reaching 13 million people worldwide.
The Brand and Media Partnership category was won by The Barilla Foundation, which partnered with the Economist Group to start a conversation about challenges affecting the global food system, and to highlight Barilla as a leading, authoritative voice on issues of food sustainability and nutrition. They produced a research programme on the theme of food and sustainability and created the ‘Food Sustainability Index‘ (FSI) which measures the sustainability of food systems in 34 countries. A multichannel communications campaign was developed to build up a global audience, and various global influencers in the field were engaged to write about the index and further spread the results and outcomes across their respective communities. The press campaign reached 431 million people and generated high levels of traffic to the site, with 16,308 visits within the first eight weeks of the campaign.
Star Alliance were commended in this category for its collaboration with The Wall Street Journal and National Geographic on its ‘Connecting Cultures‘ campaign, which created highly engaging video content celebrating the 20-year anniversary of the organisation, which has enabled cultural connections around the world. The campaign was promoted through digital ad units and social media, to create awareness and build further engagement, and was particularly effective due to National Geographic’s impressive social following.
The winner of the Financial Services category was UBS who collaborated with Spark Foundry on its ‘Driving Business Objectives: Impact Investing and Innovate China‘ campaign. Using a combination of videos, articles, timelines and infographics, the campaign was supported by digital display, social media, and print, and looked at how the ‘Made in China’ brand has been transformed to represent quality and innovation, making it a more attractive prospect for investors. Over 76 million impressions and 13 million social engagements were generated, as people liked, shared and talked about the campaign.
Luxury, Lifestyle and Fashion category was Hennessy X.O with its ‘A New Perspective Of The Silk Road‘ campaign delivered by KR Media France. Hennessy X.O proposed to celebrate the legendary Silk Road, from Cognac to Beijing, through seven local artists across seven cities, who were invited to create their own artistic interpretations of Hennessy X.O cognac. The pieces of art were unveiled in immersive exhibitions in each city, and were then shared across print and digital platforms on a global scale. National Geographic was brought on board and ran an editorial feature about the Silk Road in the December issue of the magazine. A bespoke digital hub on was created on Natgeo.com that charted the artists’ personal Silk Road journey through an interactive map and article page. The display campaign has delivered 7.5 million impressions, and the digital hub has registered 156,000 unique users and 290,000 page views.
Warner Bros Pictures topped the Media and Entertainment category with its collaboration with MediaCom on the ‘Wonder Woman Project‘, launched alongside the Wonder Woman film to appeal to a wider movie-going audience beyond traditional super-hero, action fans. The project involved gathering female artisans from across Latin America and inviting them to create their own interpretation of Wonder Woman’s wrist bracelets, a symbol of Wonder Woman’s power and protection. Their representations showcased the extraordinary diversity of traditions in each individual region. The bracelets featured at the Latin America Premiere in Mexico City, and the initiative was supported by a strong PR campaign. A two-minute branded content capsule was created for the project, featuring Wonder Woman herself, Gal Gadot; this paid media capsule reached more than two million women in the region. Wonder Woman has been a huge success in Latin America, generating an impressive $86.4 million, making it the fourth largest movie of the year and the fifth biggest Warner Bros release of all time in Latin America.
The Technology and Telecoms category was won by E.on for its ‘Tomorrow Is .On‘ campaign with Vizeum, which was set up to highlight the energy supplier’s new range of environmentally friendly solar and storage products, and to try and change the negative perceptions associated with the energy sector. A high visibility and communication awareness campaign was created for E.on’s Solar Energy Solutions, with the focus being a collaboration with the Gorillaz, a band passionate about sustainability. An online film was produced, set to the track ‘We Got The Power’ from Gorillaz’s new album Humanz, powered entirely by the sun. E.on enjoyed 100 million views of their collaboration with Gorillaz, and an additional 56 million views of a separate ‘Drive’ campaign video, which has gained almost two million social engagements through social actions and link clicks, suggesting E.on is making progress towards becoming a considered and more likeable brand.
The ‘Faroe Islands Translate‘ campaign, developed in collaboration by Mensch and Faroese-based agency Sansir, won the Travel and Tourism category. When the Prime Minister of the Faroe Islands requested for Google to add the Faroese language to Google Translate, only to be ignored, Visit Faroe Islands (who picked up the same award the previous year) and Atlantic Airways came up with a translation tool based on Google Translate, where users were invited to write a word or phrase that they would like to be translated into Faroese. The tool sends the text to Faroese volunteers who video themselves on their mobile devices and record a video of the translation, to be uploaded to the site for the person who requested it to view. The videos are saved in a database to be found by anybody else requesting the same word or phrase. This UGC video campaign enabled locals to get involved in raising awareness of their little-known language, and saw the creation of over 4000 films, seen by 102 million people within the first 24 hours.
Commended in the Travel category were Finavia Corporation who partnered with Dagmar for their #LIFEINHEL campaign, in which a Chinese man Ryan Zhu lived in Helsinki Airport for 30 days, gaining coverage through social media postings and media coverage. The campaign engaged people globally, with a media reach of over 2.2 billion and around 10 million video views around the world.
The World Media Awards 2018 were a celebration of some of the most creative and powerful content-driven, international advertising campaigns from the past year. The evening highlighted the lasting importance of honest, original, and innovate content, and served as a reminder that content remains the most important component of any marketing strategy. Find out more about the importance of content marketing here, in a talk by James Erskine, Managing Director of The Big Shot, who spoke recently at our Digital Marketing Summit.
For more information on the World Media Awards and to see all the winning entries as well as the rest of the nominees, visit wm-awards.com/2018winners.