Best Means Best

U.K.’s SPCA names the top promotions of 2000.

The U.K.’s Sales Promotion Consultants Association (SPCA) recently bestowed honors on 15 successful promotion marketing campaigns in 18 categories in its annual Best of the Best awards program.

This year’s top award went to Triangle Communications, which was named Best Promotional Marketing Agency of the Year for “successfully reinventing itself … particularly with the establishment of specialist agencies within the group.” Triangle also received Best Promotion Marketing Campaign of the Year for a summer 2000 effort that increased brand awareness and penetration for a popular British soft drink.

The winners, which now become eligible to compete in the APMA Worldwide Globe Awards competition this summer, are as follows:

Campaign of the Year

Agency: Triangle Communications for Britvic

A campaign for Britvic’s Tango soft drink dubbed Shout Down Non-Tango Drinkers caught the imagination of the public and trade alike, and helped the brand get a jump start on the summer selling period.

Wrapped around a unique premium, the program was targeted to 15- to 34-year-olds, who were invited to call an interactive hotline to request a free megaphone (which arrived within 28 days). The integrated program featured heavy exposure via P-O-P displays, on-pack offers, TV and radio spots, collateral materials, Internet marketing, sampling, and p.r. efforts.

More than 240,000 consumers called the hotline, and more than 180,000 megaphones were requested. Tango’s penetration increased from 3.6 percent to 5.3 percent over the same period the previous year.

Best Activity Generating Brand Awareness & Trial; Best Idea/Concept; Best Use of Copywriting

Agency: Saatchi & Saatchi for COI/The British Army

Military cutbacks meant the Army couldn’t afford recruitment ads on TV. Instead, they marched forward with Operation Kenya, a promotion that offered recruits the chance to win seven nights of Army training in Kenya. Soldiers handed out entry forms and answered recruits’ questions. The goal was to maximize the response rate without cheapening the Army’s image. It worked: nearly 15,000 people submitted entry forms, which was significantly higher than the Army’s expectations.

Best Use of Direct Marketing

Agency: Swordfish for Channel 4

Channel 4 launched In4mer, an extranet site for media buyers and advertisers, and announced its availability via a direct-mail campaign that built awareness for the site’s services by stimulating trial. The effort centered on a CD-ROM containing video clips from Channel 4 shows, as well as a sample of pages from the site, a direct link, and free downloads. More than 350 recipients downloaded the CD and entered a competition for a variety of prizes.

Best Multi-Disciplined Campaign; Best Activity Generating Brand Volume

Agency: Triangle Communications for Guinness

Guinness leveraged its Rugby World Cup sponsorship and increased sales volume with a program that got non-Guinness pint drinkers to try the brand while encouraging loyal customers to sample Guinness Draught in cans. The brand initiated pub activities to help drive traffic and volume, offering three pints for the price of two one hour before key home matches. The program resulted in a 28-percent sales increase (that’s eight million pints) for Guinness Draught from the previous year and a 15 percent year-to-year increase for Guinness Draught in cans.

Best Use of New Media

Agency: Tequila London for Open

Open, the U.K.’s first national interactive TV platform, found a fun way to get subscribers to Sky digital service to press the “interactive” button on their remote controls for a glimpse of Open. The promotion centered on an interactive Trivial Pursuit game that consumers played on their TVs. Players who correctly answered a bonus question gained entry into a sweepstakes giving away a variety of prizes. The game attracted more than one million online entries.

Best Use of Advertising

Agency: Clarke Hooper Momentum for the Construction Industry Training Board (CITB)

CITB created a highly visible press campaign using food as an analogy to the potential dangers of building sites (such as celery being snapped to represent bones breaking). Clarke Hooper distributed instructional videos to get the message out. Some 1,280 videos were requested in four weeks and the CITB call center received 8,000 calls about a special health and safety test promoted through the campaign.

Best International Campaign

Agency: IMP for Philips DAP

Philips used its official sponsorship of the Euro 2000 soccer tournament to promote the Philishave Cool Skin brand to young men and bring football into the bathroom (what a treat!). The brand offered the target audience everything it needed to build a “football shrine” in the bath, the shower, and the sink. The program was pan-European in scope, but incorporated a local flair to create relevance to local team supporters.

Most Effective Long-Term Campaign

Agency: Perspectives for Carlsberg-Tetley

Tetley established a partnership with the Rugby Union in 1997; and set out to position itself as “ruggedly smooth.” Campaigns dubbed Kick for £1 Million (which ran from 1998 to 2000) and Smoother Way to Win £1 Million proved quite successful. The three-year association has pushed Tetley from the ninth-best performing beer to the number one spot. Market share jumped eight points.

Most Innovative Communication Strategy

Agency: KLP Euro RSCG for Guinness Ireland Group

Witnness (rhymes with “Guinness,” sort of) became the biggest music phenomenon in Ireland last year, gaining unprecedented acclaim from the music industry as well as from the elusive 18- to 24-year-old target audience. To recruit more youthful drinkers to the brand (which research showed they found to be “boring, conformist, and hard to drink”), Guinness captured their hearts and imaginations via small, unannounced music concerts and the largest ever two-day Irish music festival.

Best Activity Generating Brand Loyalty

Agency: Clarke Hooper Momentum for Jet Petrol

The Smile loyalty card is the only electronic loyalty program offering customers both cash back and “buy and fly” points. The core offer is one pence per liter of fuel, two pence for every £1 spent in a Jet shop, and 15 pence for every car wash. Points can also be redeemed for airline miles. A scheme called Big Smile enables community groups to save together for a local cause. More than one million customers are using cards, and the average purchase is up by 20 percent.

Best Business to Business

Agency: Swordfish for Channel 4

Channel 4 mailed packages encouragingmedia buyers to watch the network’s entire preview video by interspersing outtakes from a network party attended by many of them a few weeks earlier. Several buyers were caught in freeze-frame, which gave them 15 seconds of fame. Buyers were invited to name their freeze-framed peers to win a chance at a holiday in St. Tropez. Also included in the packages were food, branded literature, and a special gift. More than 14 percent of the recipients responded, and word-of-mouth exposure generated additional requests for the video.

Best Retail Account-Specific Activity

Agency: The Marketing Store Worldwide for ASDA

Superstore ASDA set up giant inflatable screens in 24 of its store parking lots throughout the U.K. to create a drive-in movie experience. A special sound system let attendees tune into the film’s soundtrack through their car radios, while roller blading usherettes sold food and drinks. More than 50,000 families attended as all 24 events sold out.

Best Dealer or Sales Force Activity

Agency: TMO for Mercedes-Benz

This program increased sales of specific Mercedes-Benz classes through a dealer incentive offering a group travel reward reflecting the “class” and style of the brand. Dealers learned how they could earn a trip to Dubai via a dedicated Web site, accessible through both the Internet and Mercedes’ own extranet. More than 53 percent of dealerships posted sales greater than 150 percent of target, and 15 best-selling dealerships exceeded the target by 200 percent.

Best Use of Art Direction; Best Use of Illustration

Agency: Biggart Donald London for Bacardi-Martin

The “Juddermania” campaign created a recognizable theme that was communicated consistently through all of Bacardi-Martin’s promotional materials. Centered on the made-up verb “to judder,” the beverage was positioned as being able to awaken consumers’ taste buds with just one swig, which would in turn result in a state of widespread “Juddermania.” The look and feel of the promotion complemented the ad campaign to create more of an impact with the trade.

Best Use of Photography

Agency: IMP for Tetley’s Bitter Cup

Attendance at the Tetley’s Bitter Cup traditionally the most important tournament on the club rugby calendar, had fallen 27 percent since 1997. To change that, the brand set out to establish credibility with fans by depicting gritty shots of rugby players in action in all promotional materials including mailings, press inserts, and outdoor posters. Attendance improved — and the revenue from the extra tickets covered all promotion costs.