Xaxis
CASTORAMA INSPIRES
Awards: Effective Use of Data (Gold) and Campaign Effectiveness (Silver)
Castorama worked with Xaxis to make it the online sales leader in the home-improvement category, with a limited budget. They wanted to create new paths to conversion and used content featuring popular celebrities to target their demographic by boosting engagement. Utilising mPlatform and AI-based targeting technologies, Xaxis matched banners served to the interests of each consumer. They then tailored content to be even more targeted. To maximise sales, they cross-referenced data for castorama.pl with the best-selling items on Google, Allegro and Ceneo online stores.
LDV United
Breastfeeding Extras
Awards: Branded Content (Bronze)
Campaign summary
Breastfeeding away from home, makes more and more mothers feel uncomfortable. They receive negative comments, are asked to ‘do it somewhere else’ and feel embarrassed. The Belgian organization ‘Kind en Gezin’ wants breastfeeding to be something normal again. To do this, they invented ‘Breastfeeding Extras’: mothers that breastfeed their babies in the background of popular television programs, series, movies, video clips.
By bringing breastfeeding back into popular culture, our Extras are making breastfeeding truly part of everyday life again.
1. Objectives and Strategy
Breastfeeding has always been one of the most beautiful and natural things in the world. But times have changed. More and more breastfeeding mothers receive complaints for their “indecent behaviour” and are being sent away from restaurants, parks or shops
‘Kind en Gezin’, a Belgian governmental organisation that supports young parents and nurseries, wanted to make breastfeeding normal again. How? By bringing it back into popular culture. Because the more you see breastfeeding, the more normal it becomes.
So, we came up with something new: breastfeeding extras. Breastfeeding extras are just like any other extras in television, except for one thing: while they’re acting, they’re breastfeeding. By showing more breastfeeding moms on television, we’ll change public opinions that it is strange to breastfeed a baby in public. By doing so, moms nurturing their babies will be accepted again, no matter where they are taking care of their little one.
2. Execution and Media
In order to convince production houses to work with our Breastfeeding Extra’s, media attention was key in order to get the conversation rolling.
So, we did something quite unusual. We’ve created a very special online casting agency, featuring nothing but Breastfeeding Extra's. This way, moms could feasibly volunteer on our online platform to become an extra themselves and production houses could easily book extras for their film set. We’ve launched an online film introducing the agency and its purpose to show more breastfeeding moms in public.
3. Creative
We used the power and reach of influencers on social media to inspire volunteers to spark the public conversation. The press loved the surprise and reported on Breastfeeding Extras on online news sites, the radio and even on television. This way, they pressured production agencies into hiring a Breastfeeding Extra for their recordings. The agencies were charmed by the idea and soon after, some of Belgium’s biggest TV-shows booked a Breastfeeding Extra. Following the reappearance of our Breastfeeding Extras on television, we received a second and third wave of both on- and offline PR.
4. Innovation
Breastfeeding Extra’s are a unique approach to get breastfeeding incorporated in popular media, without placing them directly in the spotlight. It’s by their subtle appearances in the background, that they underline how ordinary it is to breastfeed a baby in public.
So, we created the first casting agency of its kind, creating opportunities for both volunteers as for production houses to help break the taboo on breastfeeding. All this, without a single euro spent on paid media.
5. Results
It was an unusual approach and it worked. After only one week, 10.000 people have visited our casting website. Even better, 497 of our visitors subscribed to become a Breastfeeding Extra. That’s a conversion rate of 5%.
Besides, with no media budget, we managed to get a reach of 20 million and €686.000 in free ad value. A number that will only keep on growing with every Breastfeeding Extra appearing on primetime television.
Our first Extras have already made their debut in big shows like ‘Familie’, ‘De zonen van Van As’ and ‘De Buurtpolitie’. The Flemish Audio-visual Fund even decided to become a supporting partner. Moreover, Breastfeeding Extras are going off-screen, appearing in two famous Belgian comic books, ‘Kiekeboe’ and ‘De Buurtpolitie’, reaching an even more diverse audience.
And so, episode by episode and show by show, our Breastfeeding Extras are proving that breastfeeding is truly part of everyday life.
Initiative
Axe Starladder 2018
Awards: Native Advertising (Bronze)
Campaign summary
This project was aimed to increase the sales of our e-com shop with the help of further e-sports territory conquest. The collaboration with reliable partner – Starladder – provided us with standard branding options and also with unique native integration of promo code right inside the game graphics.
Objectives and Strategy
The main target of this project was to increase the sales of Unilever Axe DTC e-shop in Russia.
Earlier Axe made real the 3-steps conquest of e-sports territory: Team sponsorship, sponsorship of championship streams and large special project for wide gaming audience.
In 2018 we decided to increase the quality of our presence in Championships streams and used unique option of native promo code integrations right inside the game graphics – it was so native that viewers could easily define it as a part of ingame decorations.
Execution and Media
Axe used the familiar type of project, but with DTC shop support:
Creative
Our promo code wasn’t given to Target Audience right in the face – we gave them a hint, that they can find it during the match streams. It was made with the help of ingame graphic banners, that were similar to environmental elements, such as billboards, posters etc.
Innovation
Integration right in the game graphics is the deepest and most native way of advertising among e-sports fans audience. The nativeness of this integrations gave us positive feedback and successful campaign results
Results
Universal McCann
Toyota Hybrid Cars Programmatic OOH
Awards: Programmatic Advertising (Bronze)
With no other brand in Turkey (except Toyota) producing hybrid engine technology, consumers were still very new to this tech. There was also misinformation about hybrid engines. Universal McCann carried out a campaign with extensive and informative messages to raise awareness of Toyota’s hybrid vehicles and implemented a data driven OOH campaign.
C-Section
#ThisFoodIsOnMe
Awards: Social Media (Bronze)
Campaign summary
Turkey is home to the biggest stray animal population in Europe. A myriad of animal lovers volunteer for the animals’ wellbeing, only to fall short of meeting the needs. Therefore, we wanted to make feeding stray animals as easy as sending a tweet. This way, people would help stray animals without leaving their homes but also promote the cause.
1. Objectives and Strategy
As was the case with many operators, Vodafone was challenged in social media with regard to positive mentions. Users were mostly mentioning the brand to share their problems.
So, in order to boost our positive buzz, we decided to gather all who want to help stray animals under a single conversation with Vodafone. We aimed to bring this idea into action with Coding Tomorrow, a coding training initiative for children by Vodafone Turkey Foundation, and to gain more public recognition for the foundation.
2. Execution and Media
We set up tweet-operated food bowls in front of 11 Vodafone shops. Every tweet with the #BuMamaBenden (#ThisFoodIsOnMe) hashtag queued food to be dropped into the bowl which would be refilled automatically with each tweet. We uploaded a video, which explained how children who learned coding developed this project, to all of our social media accounts including YouTube. This video has become viral with no ad spending at all. We also posted updates to let the tweeters follow up on what happens at the food dispensers.
3. Creative
We posted a video on all our social media accounts. The video showed the experience of the children who coded the Tweet-operated Food Dispenser, after a training by Coding Tomorrow, an initiative that teaches children how to code. In this video that aimed to promote the hashtag and increase popularity of the Vodafone Turkey Foundation, children called people who want to help stray animals for tweeting.
4. Innovation
The Code-operated Food Dispenser is a machine that enables users to help stray animals without leaving their homes. Every tweet with the #ThisFoodIsOnMe hashtag triggered 12 dispensers, which were set up in front of Vodafone shops, to drop food. If a bowl was full, the tweet would be held in queue. This way, users tweeted not only to provide unlimited support but also encouraged others to feed stray animals.
5. Results
The hashtag campaign produced 612,000 tweets, a record in Turkey. The #ThisFoodIsOnMe hashtag, mentioned in 175,831 tweets in one day, were posted by over 300 celebrities and influencers, and that without any ad budget allocated. The campaign thus spread very quickly. Vodafone’s positive mentions in social media spearheaded from 6 to 47 percent in November, and to 64 later on. Organically, #ThisFoodIsOnMe has transcended Vodafone and the dispensers, becoming “the” hashtag for everyone who wanted to support stray animals.
Mindshare
Cornetto Mobile İn Love
Awards: Video Advertising (Bronze)
Campaign summary
In 2018, a Wattpad story series became a top hit amonst youngsters, generated anormous talkability and the story was adapted to a movie, 4N1K. As Cornetto, we have partnered with 4N1K project starting from the script-writing process and created an integrated strategy that will cover all channels, will introduce first-ever user experiences and generate high levels of interaction and talkability around our branded contents throughout the season.
Creative focus was to enrich user experience at every medium with integration of new formats, media firsts and exclusive contents. We knew youth brands was gonna have integrations in 4N1K and our strategy was to be the by far top-of-mind brand that was associated with 4N1K above all.
Campaign results over-achieved initial targets in terms of the time spent interacting with our branded content, reaching first ever levels of view time, organic view rates, social interactions and positive mentions, shared in detail in the results.
5. Results
Cornetto reached 14 million unique users with the integrated brand experience designed across various content platforms of 4N1K covering TV, digital channels and cinema.
3 webisodes reached a 74% organic view rate, a rate no branded content has achieved before in Turkey. All 3 videos were listed in the top 5 most organically spreaded videos list. Total view time of the webisodes reached 41 million minutes, with a 5-minute average view time per video, which became a CPG industry record level.
Cornetto Youtube channel gained 35k new subscribers, becoming the second most followed CPG brand in Turkey.
Viewers interacted with the leading character’s phone content, the second screen mobile platform, for 147.000 minutes.
During the project timeline, social media interactions mentioning Cornetto doubled, while the ratio of positive mentions increased to 93%.
Time Spentwith Brand (drives outcomes)
Hearts & Science
Awards: Audience Measurement (Highly Commended)
A new research project by Adform, Audience Project, JP Politikens Hus and Hearts & Science, had the objective to explore whether the total amount of time a consumer engages with brand messaging plays a role in creating effective business outcomes.
Emotional response to ads on different platforms
Annalect
Awards: Consumer Attitudes and Behaviour (Highly Commended)
Project summary
In a world of constant stimuli and attention span decreasing, we believe more than ever, it is essential that our communication reach and leave a mark on the consumer. Not just in
memory but on a more subconscious level.
Inspired from Byron Sharp’s theory about Emotional Impact, we included biosensors when testing three ads with different creative expressions. The theory concerns the importance of brands creating positive emotional responses to make brands grow. Since we believe platforms interfere with the emotional response, the ads were tested on Facebook, YouTube and TV-on-demand.
To create a realistic ad-exposing setting as possible, we developed interface-mockups and combined it with observation and in-depth-interviews.
We concluded that the ads awoke different emotional responses. But more importantly we discovered that the same ad performed differently on the platforms indicating diverse ‘platform-mindset’ and therefore diverse ‘emotional matches’ between creative expressions and platforms. This created evidence-based knowledge instead of assumption about differences in platform performance.
Furthermore, we nuanced the way to look at performance, as best performance normally would be based on respondents’ answers and time spent watching an ad, but by adding emotional measurement tools, we brought attention to the importance of choosing and adjusting to platforms.
The analytical framework was testing Byron Sharp’s theory about the importance of Emotional Impact. Byron Sharp has through evidential studies proved, that decisions are made with an emotional filter. This means, that besides having easily recognizable brand assets, it is important that brands create positive emotional responses in communication to make their brand grow.
Therefore, we tested three different creative expressions from three different industries on three different visual platforms. This create insights about both creatives and platforms combined and separately.
• Eye-tracking of the visual attention patterns in eyes including time spent and order in focus areas and navigation.
• Emotional arousal/physiological intensity through skin-conductance (SCR) such as sweat reactions.
• Facial expressiveness/response and emotional valence.
This method combination ensured physical and psychological reactions combined with self-reflection on own behavior. Furthermore, the test environment was fixed, realistic and controlled along with ad and platform rotation meaning less interference from other elements ensuring higher validation and reliability.
This means, although TV-on-demand performed best regarding time spent across platforms and ads, we discovered positive ‘emotional matches’ between ads and platforms:
• Ad-1 emotionally matched TV-on-demand because a person is talking all the way through the ad and it is essential to hear the entire speech.
• Ad-2 matched YouTube due to the humorous and “self-challenging” universe in the ad.
• Ad-3 matched Facebook as the ad expression is dreamlike and works without sound.
Normally we would conclude TV-on-demand to give the best performance based on respondents spending the longest time watching the ads on this platform. But is that the right way to measure best performance? By adding the emotional measurement tools, we discovered very different emotional responses to the same ad on three platforms meaning different emotional matches. This is a nuanced insight which is very essential when developing media strategy along with analyzing creative performance. Furthermore, this brings attention to the importance of choosing and adjusting our creative to the platform if possible.
Following the completion of this research, we have been more precise and nuanced in our consulting, as we have evidence about the platforms performing differently to certain creative expressions. Becoming aware that it is possible to measure eye tracking and nuanced emotional impact, we have extended our product portfolio.
Besides offering our clients the possibilities to test their ads’ emotional responses, we have developed emotional impact and eye-tracking solutions for instore-environments relevant for e.g. the FMCG category. The methods are very valuable in observation studies where we want to know and understand which placements and brand assets catch the consumers’ eyes.
In general, we believe it is essential to combine different methods – including methods that can complement survey and interview data – as this creates a more valuable analysis. Introducing methods that monitor both psychical and psychological responses creates a more holistic analysis.
5. Significance
Firstly, the study showed the importance of choosing the right platform for your creative expression as there is a difference in ‘platform-mindset’ which will result in different emotional responses to the same ad. Furthermore, this proves the importance of adjusting creatives to the platforms.
The analytical ad-exposing setup with interface-mockups also brings attention to the pitfalls of traditional pretests based on a survey questionnaire and interviews. This type of test is far from reality – meaning the ads are not shown in a realistic framework, where the respondents are watching content and then being presented to ads.
Making 6 Seconds Count
Teads
Awards: Digital Advertising Formats (Winner)
Project summary
Two thirds of digital media effectiveness is driven by the quality of content (Nielsen Catalina, 2017). At Teads, we are committed to helping brands evaluate their creatives for digital devices before they invest in media. We have partnered with Realeyes to develop Teads ‘Creative Lab’ to assess the performance of creatives and optimize them before the start of their advertising campaigns.
Teads Creative Lab has traditionally focused on longer form content (15-30 second adverts) but as more and more brands are using 6 second content as part of their media plans, Teads decided to commission a study with Realeyes to measure their impact and explore the relatively new area of 6 second content.
“The explosion of short form content caused by the emergence of mobile and erosion of consumer attention have changed the rules of the game. We have to learn how to tell brand stories in shorter formats, and get ready for even shorter formats in the near future” (Mars)
We were able to create some key creative take outs and best practices that our advertisers can use to ensure they are building emotionally engaging short adverts.
1. Objective(s)
The challenge with 6 second adverts is to tell a compelling story in a very short time frame.
The questions we wanted to answer with our study are: How 6 second adverts are performing and how we could make them work harder at driving emotional engagement and impact? We could then use these insights to provide best practices for our advertisers. We wanted an innovative research project that would ensure we provide our advertisers with expertise in this area, and to also benefit consumers of digital video adverts.
2. Methodology
As we wanted to assess the emotional impact of 6 second adverts on mobile specifically, we needed to ensure we had a robust study and to be the first of its kind to be done large scale on this topic. Therefore, we tested;
● 166 creatives
● 75 brands
● 10 countries
We asked our advertisers to submit their most engaging 6 second adverts, ensuring all our key business verticals were represented.
The measurement methodology was a facial coding test followed by self-reported questionnaire delivered to the Realeyes online panel. Our sample was Adults aged 16+, N=12,000 respondents
3. Key results
If you specifically design your creative with the 6 second format in mind (as opposed to just using a cut down version of a TV advert) and build a story in this time frame, we found it can still be engaging
• Adding packshot enhances impact and desire to know more
• Captions drive higher emotional response with sound off
• Funny ads drive better engagement
• Music isn’t necessarily a winning strategy
6 second advert formats require concision and discipline, and they need to be kept simple - all components must be there for a reason and play well together, to drive impact.
4. Impact and Application
Realeyes measures emotion through facial coding, their technology captures the micro-movements of the face through the webcam of a user watching an advert and uses computer vision and machine learning to analyse them, focusing on expressions of happiness, surprise, confusion, disgust, engagement, and behaviours such as how and when people move their head.
There are four emotion metrics they use when testing creative;
● Attraction (gets attention)
● Retention (holds attention)
● Engagement (elicits momentum through any emotional expression)
● Impact (leaves a lasting positive impression)
Realeyes provide an EmotionAll® score which is an over-arching 1 to 10 performance indicator combining all four metrics, relative to Realeyes database of over 16,000 videos.
At Teads we’ve already tested over 210 creatives globally with an average score 3 out of 10. This clearly calls for more content pre-testing to help optimise creative assets and to inform media investment decision.
As a result of testing 166 creatives across 10 markets we were able to create some key creative take outs and best practices that our advertisers can use to ensure they are building emotionally engaging short adverts. From a global perspective, 6 seconds is also a perfect time frame to create adverts that can transcend markets if the narrative allows for it.
From our findings, we are briefing our advertisers, creative and media agencies with how they can ensure their 6 second adverts work harder at driving emotional engagement.
5. Significance
We have been able to influence the way our advertisers think about their digital advertising and provide them with best practices to ensure that the digital advertising business is as effective as it can be. We want to ensure that in our premium environment users get the best experience, and therefore this research has enabled this – it allows us to provide expertise to our advertisers, while also ensuring users of our publishers benefit from better digital adverts.
Click here to view research project
Redefining the value of native advertising
Verizon Media, Sparkler
Awards: Digital Advertising Formats (Highly Commended)
In partnership with Sparkler, Verizon Media designed an innovative and robust research study to explore the true value of native advertising. It analysed data from over 6,000 people in the UK, Germany and France, 60+ hours of interactions with digital ads across website prototypes in premium and non-premium environments accumulating in 500k subconscious responses and more than 1.5 million data points.
Click here to view research project
Mindshare
Get Artsy with Polo!
Winners of Social Media (Gold)
After over a decade of silence, Polo had a re-launch campaign in 2017. Wanting to keep building its fun image and brand awareness, Polo interacted with young people on Instagram, using the most popular content type amongst them, GIFS. They scanned Polo in 360 degrees and uploaded it to Instagram GIPHY. Polo was the first brand that used Instagram GIPHY, at the right time while GIPHY was highly regarded & frequently used in Turkey.
Warsaw, 5 June 2019 - IAB Europe, the leading European-level industry association for the digital advertising ecosystem, is delighted to announce the winners of their prestigious MIXX Awards Europe and IAB Europe Research Awards. The annual award competitions showcase the very best of digital advertising from across Europe and the winners were announced at IAB Europe’s annual Interact conference in Warsaw, Poland on 4 June.
The 2019 MIXX Awards winning companies include: Mindshare Poland, Havas Denmark, Initiative, Reprise, Mindshare Turkey, LDV United, MediaCom Switzerland, Hype and OMD.
The 2019 Research Awards winning companies include: MeMo², Annalect, Gemius SA, Havas Media, Kantar and Teads.
The full MIXX Awards Europe winners can be viewed here and the full IAB Europe Research Awards winners can be viewed here.
The MIXX Awards Europe recognise and celebrate the best digital advertising campaigns in Europe. Chaired by Anna Lubowska, Independent Business Consultant and Supervisory Boards Member, the MIXX Awards Europe has 13 categories which were reviewed by a jury of leading industry experts. More information about the MIXX Awards Europe jury members can be found here.
Anna Lubowska, Chair of the Jury said: “Today marketers have a range of channels in which they can reach their target audiences. This brings with it challenges on deciding where to allocate advertising budgets. Celebrating the latest and greatest work, the MIXX Awards Europe highlight why digital is a necessary channel for all campaigns. The competition recognises these campaigns and the teams behind them achieving excellence in digital marketing. Winning a MIXX Awards Europe prize puts victors in the marketing spotlight.”
The IAB Europe Research Awards recognise and showcase great European digital research projects and the contribution they have made to the development of the digital advertising industry. There are 8 categories including Consumer Attitudes & Behaviour and Research & Data Innovation. The Jury was chaired by Rene Lamsfuss, Chief Analytics Officer at Publicis Media DACH. More information about the Research Awards jury members can be found here.
Rene Lamsfuss, Chair of the Jury said: “The IAB Europe Research Awards have celebrated and showcased excellence in digital advertising research from across Europe for nearly ten years. Winning a Research Award is an industry recognised achievement and I am pleased to have been able to review the breadth and depth of submissions this year.”
The winners were announced at IAB Europe’s flagship digital advertising conference ‘Interact 2019’. The Grand Prix winners of the MIXX Awards (LDV United) and the Research Awards (MeMo²) will both present their winning projects during the second day of the Interact conference on Wednesday, 5 June, where over 600 Industry leaders from across Europe’s digital advertising ecosystem, including advertisers, publishers, agencies and technology companies attended.
Notes to editors
About IAB Europe:
IAB Europe is the leading European-level industry association for the digital advertising ecosystem. Its mission is to promote the development of this innovative sector and ensure its sustainability by shaping the regulatory environment, demonstrating the value digital advertising brings to Europe’s economy, to consumers and to the market, and developing and facilitating the uptake of harmonised business practices that take account of changing user expectations and enable digital brand advertising to scale in Europe.
Media contact:
Marie-Clare Puffett, Business Programmes Manager, IAB Europe – puffett@iabeurope.eu
Helen Mussard, Marketing & Business Strategy Director, IAB Europe - mussard@iabeurope.eu
