Campaigns for Ikea in India, Saudi Arabian Al Rajhi Bank, Finnish grocery store chain Alepa, Fox Cricket in Australia and Snickers in China are among the winners of the Effective Innovation category of the WARC Awards, a global search for next-generation marketing effectiveness.
Thirteen campaigns from around the world — one Grand Prix, four Gold, five Silver and three Bronze — have been selected as winners in the Effective Innovation category, which recognises innovative thinking that has transformed a business to deliver tangible results.
BBDO Energy takes the Grand Prix for 'Prescribed to Death', an innovative live experience and multimedia campaign for American non-profit organisation, the National Safety Council, to raise awareness of prescription opioid overdose in the US. Describing why it won, judge Lorenzo Wood, Chief Innovation Officer, Publicis.Sapient, commented, "It was brave to spend so much of their budget on an installation, and the sticker was brilliant: it used something forgotten and basic in a really effective way."
Three special awards have also been given in specific areas of excellence: Channel Innovation Award, for the best example of an innovative use of media; Category Innovation Award, for the best example of a brand defying category norms or creating a new category; and Partnership Award, for the best collaboration that helped a brand rethink a solution to a business challenge.
Dan Burdett, former Chief Marketing Innovation Officer EMEA, eBay, chaired the jury of 14 agency and client-side industry professionals. Together, they selected the following winners:
Grand Prix:
Prescribed to Death · National Safety Council · Energy BBDO · United States
Gold:
Re:scam - The World's Most Unhelpful Chatbot · Netsafe New Zealand · DDB Group New Zealand · New Zealand
My Line · The Colombian Ministry of Technology & Communication · MullenLowe SSP3 · Colombia
Monty · Fox Cricket · Foxtel · Mindshare · Australia + Channel Innovation Award
Flu tracker based on AI · Theraflu · GlaxoSmithKline · MediaCom Russia · Russian Federation
Silver:
The Woman Behind The Veil · Al Rajhi Bank · FP7 McCann Riyadh · Saudi Arabia + Category Innovation Award
India's Digital Locker · Paytm Gold · One97 Communications Pvt Ltd · McCann Worldgroup India · India
Block Wish · Alepa · HOK-Elanto | S Group · SOK Media · Finland
Missguided Styles Love Island · Missguided · MediaCom · United Kingdom + Partnership Award
Noon Assembly · Kwality Dairy · Kwality Limited · McCann Worldgroup India · India
Bronze:
Anything is better with KFC Golden Egg Crunch · KFC · QSR Stores Sdn Bhd · Ensemble Worldwide, Universal McCann · Malaysia
Hunger-Free Airlines · Snickers · Mars China · BBDO China · China
The world's longest drive-through furniture catalogue · Ikea · McCann Worldgroup · India
To see the winning case studies in the Effective Innovation category, please view here: https://www.warc.com/WarcAwards.prize?tab=innovation
The winners of the remaining categories — Effective Content Strategy, Effective Social Strategy and Effective Use of Brand Purpose categories — will be announced shortly. The Grand Prix and Special Awards winners across the four categories of the WARC Awards share a $40,000 prize fund.