The Year’s 23 Best Media Plans Sparked Conversation With Next-Level Innovation and Creativity

In this ever-expanding brand marketing ecosystem, the challenge for advertisers to effectively reach their targeted audience calls for an audacious media plan. Sometimes it’s a simple execution with a powerful message, and then there’s a need for an off-the-wall, completely bonkers campaign to cut through the clutter. This year’s crop of Media Plan of the Year honorees celebrates 23 winning teams that check those boxes and everything in between with extraordinary campaigns that sparked national conversations. From Droga5’s quiet, yet impactful “The Free Press” campaign for The New York Times to MullenLowe MediaHub’s creepy, futuristic “Altered Carbon” bus shelter campaign (see the full story here), agencies’ next-level innovation and creativity continued to shine bright in 2018. —Lisa Granatstein The Judges Many thanks to our esteemed panel of jurors who carved out time to judge another record year of Media Plan of the Year entries (Check out these interviews with some of our judges about the challenges facing the brand-agency relationship). If you’re interested in serving as a juror in 2019, please contact Jemima Mendenhall at Jemima.Mendenhall@adweek.com. Sasha Savic (jury chair), Chief Executive Officer USA, MediaCom Jonathan Anselmo, Chief Digital Officer, President, Omnicom Media Group Scott Daly, EVP, Integrated Media, 360i Susan Eberhart, EVP, Managing Director, Blue 449 Ben Gaddis, President, T3 Ed Gorman, Client President, Carat USA Annie Griffiths, Chief Marketing Officer, PHD USA Junius Hill, VP, Media Delivery, Conversant Gina Jacobson, EVP, Managing Director, Starcom USA Larisa Johnson, Brand Media Director, Lyft Laura Kavanagh, Executive Director, New York, MullenLowe Mediahub John LaGrosse, Director of Communications Design, Initiative Eve Leshaw, EVP, Global Managing Partner, UM Barry Lowenthal, Chief Executive Officer, The Media Kitchen George Popstefanov, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, PMG Erin Quintana, EVP, Client Managing Partner, J3 Jeff Ratner, Chief Media Officer, iCrossing Gail Stein, Senior Director, Marketing Science, Hearts & Science PHD | Google, ‘Celebrity Voice’ Category: Campaign ($10+ million) [kickout id="1" label="ellen"] Going into the 2017 holiday season, Google and PHD knew that 60 percent of U.S. consumers didn’t yet see the need for a smart home device like Google Home to assist with personal searches, questions and playlist requests, and help with things around the house. So the tech giant and its agency decided to highlight the features and utility of the device and voice assistance in general to audiences by weaving the voice assistant directly into key entertainment events from Halloween to Christmas. The two-month marketing blitz keyed on some unique media and celebrity-driven integrations tied to the tried-and-true scaled reach of network TV. High-profile product placements in TV shows like NBC’s Will & Grace, The Ellen Show and ABC’s Modern Family saw celebrities like Eric McCormack, Sofía Vergara, Nick Offerman and Amy Poehler addressing the device during episodes and around events like the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade and the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree Lighting. “We had so many of our favorite TV personalities and characters saying ‘Hey Google’ and using the Google Home in a wide array of situations,” says Nick Vernola, global media strategy director at PHD. They “showed just how amazing, magical and useful Google Home can be.” And overall, they helped Google sell more than 7 million of its Home devices, increasing its market share from 23 percent to 31 percent. —Gabriel Beltrone Initiative and Droga5 | IHOP, ‘Flipping to Burgers’ Category: Campaign ($5 million-10 million) [kickout id="2"] For a few weeks in June, it seemed “IHOb” was a social obsession: Was IHOP becoming a burger joint? Coming into the campaign, Initiative managing director, client advice and management Robert Holtkamp says, IHOP had positive brand recognition but was pigeonholed as a weekend breakfast destination. It needed to convince audiences to consider IHOP for lunch and dinner. With a series of mysterious social media posts, Initiative sparked conversations in the lead-up to the big reveal. During its first 10 days, the campaign accumulated 1.2 million tweets and over 15,000 earned media stories, generating 28.6 billion impressions. The campaign extended to signage, employee LinkedIn pages and even search. Initiative and IHOP partnered with Tastemade for an event revealing Ultimate Steakburgers, inviting food bloggers, influencers and press such as Food & Wine to establish credibility. Positive reviews subsequently emerged on the same day that Droga5’s creative revealed to wider audiences that the “b” stood for burgers. Utilizing geolocation data about sit-down diners at IHOP restaurants and nearby locations, Initiative was able to “understand who was responsive to IHOP advertising” and successfully target those individuals, Holtkamp adds. “We were able to understand the impact of all of our media placements on increased visitation to IHOP,” he explains. Skeptics of the activation aside, “IHOb” helped quadruple burger sales in the three weeks following the reveal. —Erik Oster Wieden + Kennedy | Chiquita, ‘The Banana Sun’ Category: Campaign ($1 million-5 million) [kickout id="3" label="chiquita"] The totality? Overrated! The real attraction during last summer’s solar eclipse was the crescent-shaped sliver of light visible from behind the moon, according to Chiquita. That phenomenon got its own cheeky name—the Banana Sun—and laid its claim on the astronomic pop culture event. August’s eclipse allowed the brand to play with alternate facts since “96 percent of America would look up in the sky and see something that looked like a banana,” minus the blue Chiquita sticker, says Jason Strickland, Wieden + Kennedy’s group media director. The agency counted down the Banana Sun’s arrival for two weeks, using Snapchat, messenger bots, GIFs and news sites The Verge and NowThis, releasing six quirky short films and sending banana-themed swag to meteorologists. Promotion also included a New York Times full-page ad, a 10-market local news blitz, a 50-foot banana parked in New York’s Flatiron District (distributing banana-shaped protective glasses) and a Facebook Live stream with Funny or Die so the agency could “take the idea to completely absurd lengths,” says Wieden + Kennedy creative director Mike Weihs. The stunt—the brand’s most successful after several quiet marketing years—snagged 372 million earned media impressions, 200,000-plus social shares and 1 million livestream views for a 666 percent ROI. —T.L. Stanley Starcom | Wingstop, ‘Flying High’ Category: Campaign (less than $500k) [kickout id="4" label="wingstop"] Every year, Wingstop would see a sales spike in the spring—on April 20, to be exact. That day is, of course, better known by its internet moniker as 4/20, a day dedicated to all-things marijuana (typically celebrated by smoking it). To capitalize on that already-present sales boost, Wingstop rolled out a campaign, dubbed “4/20 High-atus,” all about embracing the culture of 4/20. Wingstop found that culture typically involves bingeing on one of two things after lighting up: either the latest Netflix offering or snacks. “We put those things together to make it a cultural event,” says LisaAnn Rocha, evp, managing director at Starcom USA, the agency behind the campaign. “It was a cool thing that cropped up we could take advantage of.” Doing just that—capitalizing on something that feels organic to the brand—is Wingstop’s creative M.O. “You always hope for something organic that makes sense for the brand without having to force it,” Rocha adds. The resulting campaign was a series of ads, showing animated Wingstop products (a drink, a side of fries, an order of wings and a dipping sauce) walking to a Wingstop location. There are four 15-second spots, and each one gets progressively “trippier” over time, meant to mimic the experience of being high. The ads ran throughout videos on streaming services like Hulu and in cinemas. That placement was an easy fit with the 4/20 campaign, seamlessly incorporating the binge-watching element, as consumers were likely binge-watching a show as the ad appeared on their screens. “It was a great combination of medium and message coming together,” Rocha says. “We leveraged the cultural moment that was going on, and turned it into a lot of impact for Wingstop.” —Diana Pearl Hearts & Science | P&G, ‘Walking The Talk’ Category: Cause Marketing ($1+ million) [kickout id="5" label="the talk"] P&G’s “The Talk” sparked one of the most critical conversations on race by a Fortune 500 company in recent memory this past year, spotlighting the discussions African-American parents have with their children to prepare them for prejudices they will face as they get older. With a message as sensitive as that, so too had to be the way in which it was introduced to consumers. “We needed to be very, very careful,” says Jose Bello, senior director of total market planning, Hearts & Science. The agency initially identified “safe places” to release the campaign, then assessed in real time where next to place ads. A team monitored all social mentions beginning at 7 a.m. daily, ready to “pull the plug” if they became too hostile, explains Bello. There were “moments that were very difficult,” he admits, but P&G stuck to it. The CPG giant seemingly heeded the advice of one of the ad’s mothers who told her son to “keep showing up.” Ultimately, “The Talk” garnered 95 percent positive feedback and 1.8 billion earned media impressions across 900 placements. P&G authentically reached both minority and mainstream audiences through integrations with the BET Awards, Oprah Winfrey and ABC’s Black-ish, which featured the full ad in an episode that alone generated more than 15 million views online and 4 million on TV. —Lindsay Rittenhouse Wavemaker | Animal CARE Centers OF N.Y.C., ‘Borough Born and Bred’ Category: Cause Marketing (less than $1 million) [kickout id="6" label="animals"] Each year, about 30,000 animals are taken in at the Animal Care Centers of New York City. As a city animal shelter, the organization doesn’t have a budget for marketing. But thanks to pro-bono work from Wunderman and Wavemaker—along with donated media from a few dozen publications like Imgur and Flipboard—the organization created a campaign to raise awareness about what makes dogs in New York unique. That led to “Borough-bred,” a campaign focused on neighborhoods in each borough based on who might be most likely to adopt. (Areas like SoHo, the Upper West Side and various Brooklyn locations were targeted, based on Wunderman’s data-driven modeling that led to geofenced digital ads in select parts of each borough.) The campaign included photographs that showed another side of shelter dogs, which while often neglected can be just as photogenic as pets in the home. The campaign amassed more than 15 million impressions, and even targeted dogs themselves, with out-of-home ads lower to the ground designed to encourage owners to bring another pooch home. “New Yorkers themselves are very proud and resilient,” says Sara Bailer, group planning director for Wavemaker. “And we wanted to be sure we captured the shared DNA of the people of New York and these animals. We’re all mixed breeds, we’re all proud to be here, and we all love these animals.” —Martin Swant MediaCom | Gillette, ‘Holy Rollers’ Categories: International Campaign (less than $1 million), Best Use of Insights [kickout id="7" label="gilette"] In advertising deodorant to Israel’s Orthodox Jewish community, P&G’s Gillette had an unusual problem—reaching a demographic that’s largely insular, and generally doesn’t have TVs or computers at home. So it decided to enlist the help of an even bigger messenger—God himself. How? MediaCom knew from the beginning that it wanted to focus on Shabbos, which forbids observers from anything resembling work—even flipping a light switch, or rolling on antiperspirant—for 24 hours every week from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday. But when Michal Bar-tal, a religious colleague from another Gillette agency—publicity shop Stern Ariely Saar—consulted her observant father and discovered a little known piece of scripture stipulating that the faithful shall not pray in a place of foul odor, the team realized it had struck gold. MediaCom started by consulting with Israel’s rabbinical authority, gaining its backing to post flyers—sans Gillette branding—emphasizing the commandment on the popular bulletin boards posted outside synagogues and on kiosks throughout Orthodox communities. Then, it ran a side-by-side Battle of the Synagogues—testing two congregations (one wearing Gillette’s 48-hour protection, the other a competitor) using a high-tech Japanese odor-meter (purchased at MediaCom’s own expense). Cue the media blitz: MediaCom promoted the biblical decree and test results (it won, naturally) through the pre-Sabbath radio ad slots. It sponsored the candle-lighting schedules marking the start of each week’s Shabbos in religious newspapers across the community (towns vary minute to minute to match the precise time of the sunset), sending readers a fridge magnet with a checklist of pre-Shabbos preparations (including putting on their Gillette). Gilad Kat, MediaCom’s regional planning director for P&G, says while the agency could’ve run an “OK campaign” without the key insight, “the fact that the bible doesn’t want you to pray in a foul-odor environment” meant the audience wouldn’t “need to listen to Gillette anymore, telling them that we are better, and that we have this special formula. It’s suddenly ‘Listen to somebody else’—to a higher authority.” In the end, it worked—Gillette grew its share in the Orthodox community from just 3 percent to 15 percent in two months. —G.B. Universal McCann | Tourism Australia, ‘Cheeky Dundee’ Categories: International Campaign ($1+ million, Aussie News Today), Best Use of Social ($2+ million, Son of a Legend) [kickout id="8" label="aussie"] Kangaroos and koala bears are getting ogled by more international tourists in the land down under these days, thanks to two vastly different media plans from Universal McCann and Tourism Australia (TA). “Both of the campaigns focused on showcasing the personality of Australia and Australians, which are quite unique to most people,” explains Geoff Ikin, TA’s general manager of global media and PR. The cheeky side of Aussies was definitely on display in both. And the TV spot added a bit of mischief. Prior to its Super Bowl broadcast, UM dropped word in a number of ways to suggest the ad would tout a new sequel to the iconic Crocodile Dundee movie that would feature Paul Hogan (the original Dundee), Chris Hemsworth and Danny McBride—all of whom are in the commercial. “We spent a ridiculous amount of time to ensure the legitimacy of the concept, so people couldn’t tie the campaign back to Tourism Australia,” says Chris Colter, UM’s global strategy director. But about a week into the tease, people began speculating that TA was behind it. “Originally, we were like, ‘Oh no, game over!’ But the thing that surprised us is it just fueled more conversation,” says Colter. When the ad ran during the Super Bowl, it became clear that the movie “news” was a ruse. The week following the ad’s telecast saw a 35 percent growth in searches for flights to Australia, and “Dundee” was the most-viewed Super Bowl commercial. While the “Dundee” campaign aimed to bump up Australia’s share of U.S. tourism, which has been stagnant at 1.3 percent in recent years, “Aussie News Today” was focused on youth travelers, who make up 46 percent of international visitor spend. Europe was a particular focus, Ikin says. A native partnership with BuzzFeed was formed, and a global search for eight influencer correspondents took place. All told, the budding reporters produced 200 news spots from all over the country. The campaign tweaked some noses by pairing up the bad news in various overseas markets with fun info about what people might do or see in Australia. “Aussie News” has generated over 27.5 million video views and 2,400 shares. And it garnered traditional media coverage that UM values at $3.6 million. Colter was surprised by how virile some of the posts became: “Even a small Melbourne café got millions of views. Sometimes the small things can perform as well as the bigger acts.” —Janet Stilson Wavemaker | United Airlines, ‘Taxi Service’ Category: Best Use of Out-of-home Media ($500k+) [kickout id="9" label="united"] While JFK and LaGuardia aren’t always seen as everyone’s favorite airports, New Yorkers don’t always think to make a trip across the Hudson River to EWR. To help change that, United Airlines decided to take over ads on more than 100 taxi tops across New York City. To pull it off, United and its agency partnered with Verifone Media and Kinetic to attach GPS software to each taxi that showed exactly how long it took to get from Manhattan to New Jersey. The displays, based on data from the app Curb, were meant to promote the recent $120-million upgrade to United’s new terminal at Newark Liberty International Airport, where the airline moved all of its JFK flights and employees. (Along with the taxi tops, the campaign also included billboards and phone kiosk, bus shelter and airport ads.) “The entire campaign existed strictly on the fact-based argument that Newark was always more convenient than JFK, supported by live data displays that travelled around Manhattan at all hours,” says Mark Krolick, United’s vp of marketing. “Ultimately, the campaign was rooted in convenience. United wanted to help customers simplify their travel schedules and, instead of making them go digging on their own, presented the data to them directly to help make the decision easier.” The campaign was a success, with Edelman’s reputation tracker finding that brand favorability grew to 55 percent from 39 percent the previous year. According to Port Authority data, new United passengers also increased at EWR, rising 810,000. It was also a success in the eyes of the Cannes Lions judges. This summer, United won two awards in France, including one for use of real-time data and another for data-driven targeting. —M.S. UM | KFC, ‘Weathermatic Chicken’ Category: Best Use of Data [kickout id="10" label="kfc"] Going against accepted wisdom was a sticking point for Universal McCann when it figured out how to improve KFC’s track record in Malaysia. Sales were at a 10-year low for the first half of 2017, even though KFC had the QSR category’s highest media spend and top-of-mind recall in that country. “People think that during bad weather, people spend more time indoors, which means that TV consumption grows,” says Aparna Krishnan, UM director of digital and strategic planning in Malaysia. That, in turn, suggests that TV buying should increase. UM discovered data showing that during bad weather, mobile video accounted for 64 percent of sales, with TV coming in at a mere 13 percent. When the weather improved, those numbers flipped, with TV outweighing mobile video. It took some doing, but Krishnan and her colleagues convinced the skeptics and shifted to a buying strategy based on weather and media usage patterns. KFC’s revenue rose 8 percent and servings went up 6 percent, increasing media ROI threefold in H2 2017. “We’ll continue to use it in our performance and optimization strategy,” says Rina Low, a UM vp, in speaking of the “weathermatic” buying process. She and Krishnan believe it just might work for other products or in completely different countries. —J.S. Exverus Media | Suja, ‘The Living Wall’ Category: Best Use of Out-0f-home Media (less than $500k) [kickout id="11" label="living wall"] According to the CDC, 90 percent of Americans don’t eat enough fruits and vegetables, which increases their risk of health problems. But rather than preaching about the power of produce, cold-pressed juice company Suja and media strategy firm Exverus Media sought to increase consumption by presenting plants in a vibrant, playful way. “It’s one thing to tell people what to do, how to eat and to … get more fruits and vegetables in their lives. It’s an entirely different thing to experience and put literal living things into their hands or give them photo opportunities,” says Exverus president Bill Durrant. That’s why Exverus created a living wall, which was covered in artistic displays of Southern-California-friendly plants—including angel wings made out of kale—on Melrose Avenue in West Hollywood, which is near other Instagrammable hot spots. It also put up posters with tear-away seed packets for passersby in Los Angeles and San Francisco. As a result, sales in those markets grew 18 percent faster than the rest of the U.S. and Suja saw a 66x lift in social engagements and, of course, hundreds of selfies. “Suja is really fun, interactive and it has a great social vibe and we wanted to bring that to life,” Durrant adds. —Lisa Lacy Giant Spoon | HBO, ‘Best Western’ Category: Best Use of Experiential ($500k+) [kickout id="12" label="best western"] A lot went into making “SXSWestworld,” the most talked-about event of SXSW this past year. Giant Spoon’s activation transformed a patch of Texas into an immersive Westworld experience. GoPro cameras and drones captured the action for social content as actors read from 444 pages of script to create unique experiences for guests. Before “SXSWestworld” wowed audiences, the agency had to convince festival attendees it was worth the trip, which they accomplished with an OOH campaign around Austin, Texas, as well as geotargeted digital and social elements, working with HBO and the show’s creators to ensure all elements captured Westworld’s voice. Giant Spoon further extended the promotion through partnerships with Lyft and Delta. Giant Spoon co-founder Jon Haber says that on day one, there was a line many blocks long to get on the bus. “You’re happy to get people to spend seconds to minutes with your branded content,” he says. “We had people spending five, six hours with ours.” SXSWestworld resulted in 1.9 billion social media impressions during SXSW and widespread press coverage, including a designation by The Onion-owned A.V. Club as “one of the best publicity stunts of the 21st century.” “SXSW happened almost six months ago, and we’re still seeing headlines about the activation,” HBO director of program marketing Steven Cardwell says. —E.O. PHD | Old Navy, ‘Learning Through Song’ Category: Best Use of Branded Content ($2+ million) [kickout id="13" label="old navy"] Last fall, Old Navy needed a big back-to-school campaign that would break the category mold of relying on YouTubers and social influencers to move new jeans and backpackers but still capture the imaginations of moms and kids—despite their constantly changing shopping and media habits during that crucial time on the retail calendar. To that end, agency PHD teamed up with Pharrell Williams’ iamOther collective to pair eight educators from around the country with songwriters to create original music videos about learning—inspired by Chicago educator Dwayne Reed’s 2016 viral hit “Welcome to the 4th Grade.” Promoted through online channels like Upworthy, Vevo and mobile channels like video-sharing app Musical.ly (now TikTok), it also included an integration with Jimmy Kimmel Live that brought one teacher, Cedric Gardner, and his students to the broadcast. The results? Old Navy’s third-quarter sales rose 4 percent year over year, bucking the category’s downward trend, while its ONward! program for underprivileged children was able to donate $1 million (including corporate matching) to the Boys & Girls Clubs of America. Plus, says Jennifer Park, head of communications planning at PHD, “there was so much love and excitement for the teachers that were featured in the campaign from their local communities, giving them the rock star status they deserve.” —G.B. OMD | Gatorade, ‘Keep Her in The Game’ Category: Best Use of Branded Content ($1 million-2 million) [kickout id="14" label="gatorade versus"] By their teenage years, girls are abandoning sports 50 percent more than their male peers. It’s an issue that Gatorade wanted to do something about. In hopes of counteracting this statistic, Gatorade partnered with AwesomenessTV to create Versus, a scripted series featuring female athletes (lacrosse players) as the starring characters. Each episode is about 21 minutes and is available to stream. The series was launched alongside a campaign called “Sisters in Sweat,” which spotlighted professional female athletes like Serena Williams, as well as famous women for whom sports played an important role in their lives, like fashion designer Tory Burch. Susanna Earnest, managing director for OMD, the agency behind the campaign, says that Gatorade hoped the episodes would “candidly spark a conversation on the importance of keeping girls in the game.” A scripted show felt like the right fit, particularly because there was a void waiting to be filled: There were a lot of stories that spoke to the experience of high school-aged boys playing sports. But for girls, the offerings were decidedly less. “We wanted to find something that would encourage girls who had a love for sports to stay motivated,” Earnest says. The results were tangible: The six-episode series quickly earned over a million views. Earnest says that through interviews, Gatorade saw a “double-digit lift” in girls’ confidence about participating in sports, and a positive brand association with Gatorade as well. Andrew Hartshorn, vp, CMO for Gatorade, says: “We knew we had something special, emotional and thought-provoking on our hands right away.” —D.P. Spark Foundry | Novo Nordisk, ‘Sugar Daddy’ Category: Best Use of Branded Content ($500k-1 million) [kickout id="15" label="sugar daddy"] Black-ish star—and Novo Nordisk spokesperson—Anthony Anderson was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes in 2002. Since many episodes of Black-ish reflect the experiences of its writers, producers and actors, Spark Foundry chief content officer Eric Levin said it was natural to integrate a storyline on diabetes. And so Spark Foundry approached ABC. The result? The episode, “Sugar Daddy,” which was seen by 4.3 million people. “One of the things we had talked a lot about, especially when it comes to diabetes, was dispelling some of the myths and fears that come along with it,” Levin says. “One of the big things when being diagnosed, he’s [Anderson’s character] terrified of the pinprick … [there’s a] specific clip where his wife is testing him and [he’s] reacting positively to that, which was to shed light—this is not something you have to be scared of. It can be managed.” They also wanted to address the medical risks associated with not treating diabetes, like cardiovascular disease and stroke. And they wanted it to feel organic. “For us, it was more important to provide support and medically accurate information to encourage our consumers to reach out to get the support they need,” he adds. And, as a result, 60,000 people joined Novo Nordisk’s Get Real About Diabetes Facebook community. —L.L. Twitch | Pepsi Brisk Iced Tea, ‘No Off Season’ Category: Best Use of Streaming Media/OTT [kickout id="16" label="brisk"] When Pepsi approached gaming platform Twitch to ask about advertising its Brisk Iced Tea brand, it wanted to find a way to sponsor a competition without competing with other Pepsi brands. The livestreaming video platform thought Rocket League—a vehicular soccer video game that’s grown in popularity in the last two years—might be a good fit. However, it was in between seasons, which led to the idea of creating off-season content to keep fans engaged while letting Pepsi market its Brisk Tea Watermelon Lemonade during the hot summer months. Thanks to its sponsorship, Pepsi got access to league assets, including use of talent from the broadcast booth for making commercials. Brisk also sponsored an event for off-season content, with prize money of $15,000. The push led to user-generated videos, GIFs and other content, including videos of fans and pros livestreaming themselves practicing. According to Twitch, the campaign led to 27 million impressions, a 467 percent lift in brand preference for those aware of the sponsorship and a 38 percent increase in brand favorability among Rocket League Championship Series fans. “This was content for fans that wasn’t going to exist if it weren’t for Brisk,” says Nathan Lindberg, global director of esports sponsorships at Twitch. “That’s what really made it exciting for fans that were craving Rocket League content and weren’t getting any—a brand came in and said ‘actually, here.’” –M.S. Droga5 | The New York Times, ‘The Free Press’ Category: Best Use of Native (less than $1 million) [kickout id="17" label="nytimes"] With the president firing off tweets dubbing the press the enemy of the people, convincing consumers to place their trust in the country’s best-known journalistic outlets is perhaps more difficult than ever. So to create a campaign for The New York Times in honor of World Press Freedom Day, there was a heavy weight on Droga5’s shoulders to produce something impactful. “Our challenge was to use a powerful message combined with a simple execution to convince people of the importance of quality, independent reporting and how it is essential to our society and democracy,” Jay Potash, senior communications strategist for Droga5, says. Along with The Times, Droga5 worked with Unesco on the campaign, asking the organization to “elevate” World Press Freedom Day. The finished product was a simple, clean ad with text that read: “Don’t just read The New York Times. Read The Wall Street Journal. Read The Atlantic.” Those directives continued down the ad, encouraging people to consume news from a variety of sources, including The Economist, NPR, BBC News and the Chicago Tribune, among others. Those that were included had given their approval for their names to be printed on the ad, in a show of journalistic solidarity. The ad ran for one day only, on a Times Square billboard, in digital and print publications and in 30-second broadcast spots. And despite the short shelf life, the campaign proved to have a major impact: 724 million impressions were delivered, and conversation around the topic grew 361 percent year over year. —D.P. PHD | Google Cloud, ‘Basketball Data Diaries’ Category: Best Use of AI/Machine Learning [kickout id="18" label="google cloud"] During 2018 March Madness, Google didn’t want to just be another tech sponsor for a big national sporting event. So it showed millions of college basketball fans—including business leaders glued to the action—how its Google Cloud services could bring the NCAA’s decades of historical data to life with ads featuring real-time predictions about the games they were watching. In a war room outside the Final Four arena, PHD and agency partners Essence, Eleven, Gentleman Scholar and Cloneless relied on a pre-made creative toolkit capable of creating more than 100,000 unique spots. They fed first-half stats into Google Cloud-based software, crunched the numbers and, in less than 10 minutes apiece, assembled and delivered TV ads ready to air at the beginning of the second half. Each of six predictions featured info like the current score and precise estimates—like the number of rebounds, three-pointers or assists from both teams. “It was contextual to the moment, it was relevant to the range of our IT audience and it told a simple data story for complex cloud technology,” explains Graham Bahler, strategy director at PHD. Moreover, the data-based activation netted a 91 percent lift in product interest for Google Cloud, a 42 percent increase in brand search volume and 30 percent more new site visits—with a 19 percent increase in time on site. —G.B. Carmichael Lynch | Subaru, ‘Amazon Infiltration’ Category: Best Use of Native Advertising ($500k-1 million) [kickout id="19" label="subaru"] Searching for frostbite kits and flare guns on Amazon will activate recommendations for other adventure gear like high-altitude tents, sturdy backpacks and, last fall, Subaru Crosstreks. The ads, built specifically to mimic Amazon’s well-known “You May Also Like” content, “had to feel like they sat naturally on the page,” says Neil Goodspeed, Carmichael Lynch’s media director, senior partner, while “catching attention and showing a little of our personality.” That’s where the gator repellant came in, he says, noting that the agency’s media and creative teams picked the items (that also included wolf urine pellets and bear traps) with Amazon. “It was a way of finding our segment naturally through their behavior and serving up something that felt created with them in mind,” Goodspeed says. For the first “Amazon infiltration,” Subaru also launched an interactive display page where consumers could research and custom build a Crosstrek and find a dealer. Clickthrough rates were two to four times the average benchmark (1.5 percent versus 0.4 percent), with 15,000 consumer actions reported. The campaign, which delivered a 25 percent lift in brand preference, led to record sales during the launch, eventually topping 100,000 in annual sales for the SUV for the first time. —T.L.S. MediaCom |Deutsche Telekom, ‘Color Me Magenta’ Categories: Best Use of Mobile ($500k+), Best Use of VR/AR [kickout id="20" label="magenta"] Imagine if your smartphone could magically turn anything hot pink into a moody, tuneful cartoon. Well, last year Deutsche Telekom and MediaCom did just that, creating a special augmented reality app, The Lenz, as part of a sweeping joint campaign with hit virtual band Gorillaz to promote Humanz, its first album in seven years. The big idea? To turn the brand’s signature shade of magenta into its very own media channel, as a way to connect with hard-to-reach millennials via the key music passion point while also burnishing Telekom’s image as a forward-thinking tech brand rather than a sleepy telecom. The campaign included a first-ever “live interview” with two members of the animated band—2D and Murdoc—that racked up 1.1 million views online. A clever smartphone ad presented itself as if one of them, Murdoc, was calling the user’s phone. Across media platforms—digital, print, out-of-home—loads of hot pink backgrounds—a magenta wrapper on a parked car or a column—gave viewers the chance to try out the app. And whatever pink object they pointed it at—shoes, the label on a bottle of shower gel, even a woman’s face covered in magenta makeup—became its own portal to a world of exclusive Gorillaz-themed images, music, live concert footage and special offers. MediaCom also seeded the app through a group of some 500 “micro-influencers”—people with, say, 500 followers each on Instagram, who might be willing to take a couple of bucks from the brand to post images of themselves trying out the app on something magenta. “The good thing about micro-influencers is that it’s more tangible because these are regular people who are posting, but then also we’re able to geotarget” to activate around specific onsite events, explains Evan Depko, the international unit director at MediaCom who spearheaded the campaign. With a core time frame of just one month, the overall campaign ultimately netted the brand 418 million total impressions across paid owned and earned channels in Europe and beyond. —G.B. McKinney | Marpac, ‘Sleeping Championship’ Category: Best Use of Social in Campaigns Spending (less than $500k) [kickout id="21" label="sleeping"] Marpac has been a sleepy brand in more than one way. Its Marpac Dohm, a white noise sound machine, helps people doze off. But “a lot of people who have Marpac don’t realize they have one,” explains Swapnil Patel, executive director, media, at McKinney. Patel’s team was tasked with giving Marpac a brand refresh and finding a big idea that would help the company double its sales over time. However, there was a catch: The all-in marketing budget for the big idea was $350,000. The solution Patel’s team landed on was the Competitive Sleeping League Championship, a tongue-in-cheek event that pitted four snoozing contestants against each other during a late-night event on a College Humor Facebook livestream March 3 of this year. “We were able to bring a media partner to the table that was on brand,” says Patel, in speaking of the partnership with College Humor. “And we negotiated the cost of production to be ‘baked in’ as part of the media buy.” Over 700,000 viewers tuned in, generating more than 5,400 shares and 7,700 comments. While Marpac hasn’t doubled sales yet, “we’re well on our way,” says Steve Cummings, Marpac’s director of consumer communications. “This was the biggest [marketing] thing we’ve done in our history, and a great first step.” —J.S. Hearts & Science | P&G, ‘Listening Up on Brushing’ Category: Best Use of Voice [kickout id="22" label="toothbrush"] As any parent of young kids can attest to, it’s the campaign that defies all odds. Built specifically for voice, P&G’s “Chompers” for Crest Kids miraculously got children (target age was 3 to 9) to brush their teeth for a full two minutes—twice daily—with witty songs, jokes and facts delivered via sink-side voice assistance. Brian Post, Hearts & Science brand director of strategy, says this was his first campaign solely concentrated in voice. He says it accomplished “the goal of getting kids to brush their teeth more” because it was “authentic and valuable.” Visuals would have only been distracting. Since research showed it takes 21 days of repetition to form habits, Hearts & Science created morning and night episodes for 28 days. It was distributed across iTunes, Google Play and Spotify; plus, the agency created an Amazon Alexa skill that included winning streaks to further incentivize kids to brusha, brusha, brusha. Before using the podcast, only 6 percent of parents reported it was “very easy” to get their children to brush their teeth twice a day, 47 percent said their kids brushed every morning and 69 percent scrubbed their chompers at night before heading off to bed. After “Chompers,” those numbers spiked to 68 percent, 73 percent and 89 percent, respectively. Downloads reached 2 million in August. —L.R.

Media Plan of the Year

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