MPR Brilliance Awards Winners 2018

Judges Alumni

Stephen McCallion

Global Head of marketing Communications at TAQA, former Global Head of Corporate identity Communications , SHELL

Andrew Flowers

Senior Digital Marketing Manager, Microsoft & Nokia

James Stevenson

Founder And Managing Director Of Bletchley Group Digital Consultant of Marks And Spencer, UK

Martin Kirke

Non-Executive Director and Coach, Advisory Board Chairman at PushFar.

Tony Coll

Media & Communication Consultant, former BBC Journalist

Simon Nicholson

Social Media Manager, Honda Motor Europe Ltd

Omar Rostom

Consumer Engagement and Media Manager Near East, North Africa, Levant, & Emerging Asia, Microsoft

Christophe Ginisty

President 2013 , International Public Relations Association, Former Digital Evangelist for Europe, Middle East and Africa, Edelman

Hannu Koikkalainen

Head of Digital Planning, Microsoft, Finland

Guy Perry

Managing Director, Gulf Media Experts, UAE

Awards
Marketing and PR Brilliance Awards
MPR Brilliance Awards Winners 2018

April 16, 2024

MPR Brilliance Awards Winners 2018

2018 MPR Brilliance Awards - Winners Announced!

The Marketing and PR Brilliance Awards champions the vital role that Marketing and PR plays in the success of any organisation and the winning of a MPR Brilliance Award is an affirmation excellence amongst employees, colleagues and industry peers.

We believe that those who enter the awards, and of course those who ultimately win the awards, are role models of excellence that inspire all of us to be the best that we can. Within their entries and out of their success, there are lessons from which we can all learn.

So this report on the BOC MPR Brilliance Awards is not only a celebration of outstanding performance, it is also a guidebook for what it takes to be extraordinary. It contains lessons for all of us who are curious enough, and ambitious enough to look for them.

Tom Griffin

Chair of BOC Brilliance Awards

Judging Criteria

To help harness these lessons we put in place a set of judging criteria that together create a model of excellence against which we can judge, reward, learn and share.

The Role Models of Excellence criteria:

Clarity of Purpose– A crystal clear vision of exactly what it is you are going to achieve with the campaign.
Focussed Intent– The clarity of strategic thinking from the outset, and the ability to stay true to that strategy.
Creative Flexibility– Yes the quality of the initial ideas and their execution, but also the responsiveness to emerging opportunities and challenges that inevitably arise along the way.
Resourcefulness– The careful use of allocated budget and the creative harnessing of other resources.
Effectiveness– Did the activity, team or individual achieve its objectives and was the investment of time, money and resources positively beneficial?
Cultural Value- Did the activity, team or individual have a positive impact on the organisation, the target audience and all others it touched?

Brilliance in PR & Communication

Winner – M-Integrated Solutions Plc(M-is) – RAF Op VR

This campaigns clarity of purpose impressed the judges, with clearly defined objectives ranging from inspiring eligible candidates to consider a career in the RAF though awe inspiring insights into the experiences it offered, to positioning the RAF as a cool and innovative employer.

Their solution was a multi-user, virtual reality experience that immersed the users into a day in the life of the Royal Air Force across five different job roles.

The results speak for themselves. 50% of those exposed the communications activity took further action, with over 65 thousand minutes of recruitment content viewed across the campaign so far.

Best Social Media Campaign

Winner – Fox Networks Group Europe & Africa – DEEP STATE Social Media Campaign

This was a hugely important campaign for FNG, as it was their first commission drama in Europe & Africa. Objectives for the campaign were impressively focussed given the hard to reach target market.

Judges were also impressed by the clarity in the strategic narrative of Tease, Ignite Reveal. Not only did they take the hugely unusual move of creating their own title sequence, they committed over a third of the significant media spend to digital and social channels.

Among many great achievements in terms of effectiveness the judges felt that a 250% increase over the channel’s primetime average spoke volumes about the comparative effectiveness of the campaign.

Best New Product Launch

Winner – DS Smith Recycling & Paper - BedKind

The new product, BedKind is a sustainable and extremely healthy solution of animal bedding using recycled cardboard. At the time of the product’s launch, cardboard animal bedding was only 1% of the bedding market.

Judges were impressed with the Creative Flexibility of the product and the innovation that seems to be woven into the fabric of the business.

But it was the Resourcefulness that saw a virtual marketing team pulled together specifically for the launch from across the parent business, that so impressed the judges. This team was then able to create a campaign that generated a 281% increase in website traffic 83% of which were from new visitors, and a staggering 1300% increase in website sign ups.

Best Marketing/PR Agency

Winner – Labyrinth Marketing

The Focussed Intent behind the Labryrinth Marketing approach greatly impressed the judges. This was clear from the strategy development phase of their work in Pukka Pies comprising three narrative steps; Frequency, Penetration and Awareness.

Woven into this simple structure was a real Clarity of Purpose around what success looked like in terms of quantifiable outcome and commercial effectiveness.

Judges were also very impressed by the way in which they stood up and took responsibility as role models of better practice for the whole industry, and the outreach elements they proactively instigated as part of that.

Judges Choice – Cutting Edge Thinking

Winner – Dignity Funerals

In a tough and sensitive market, and fragmented national and local brand presence, and a shift from high street visitors to online researchers, Dignity was suffering a decline in market share. To add to this challenging environment, they had no centralized marketing function to speak of.

So effectively starting from scratch, with a small team of six, they a full and sophisticated integrated marketing including a redefining of their brand.

This clarity of purpose, resourcefulness and focussed intent, made the team’s work quite exceptional and for that they are well deserved winners of this years’ Judges Choice Awards.

Best Individual Marketer/PR

Winner – Victoria Mellor

Victoria leads a team of 20 responsible for brand strategy and corporate marketing, events and sponsorship, digital and social media, PR, external and internal communications, product marketing and sales engagement. So she is a very busy person!

Among the many initiatives she has been responsible for, Victoria led a global rebrand project in 2016 resulting in the launch and activation of the NEX brand in January 2017.

Her CEO Michael Spencer summed up this achievement beautifully by saying: “She is an extremely accomplished leader whose exceptional work on the NEX rebrand has had a significant impact on the company’s position within the financial markets.”

Brilliance in Marketing

Winner – Great Western Railways

In the face of significant reputational headwinds GWR needed a campaign that not only improved brand perception and awareness, but that filled 3 million additional seats. From the beginning the team had real Clarity of Focus; to encourage increased leisure travel by train, to get customers to book Advance fares directly with GWR, and improve the reputation of the brand during challenging times.

The campaigns Focussed Intent was to move customers focus away from thinking and onto feeling, which it achieved through an emphasis on the sense of adventure train travel evokes and by using the creative vehicle of The Famous Five.

After just 10 weeks, campaign awareness was at 68%, a full 10 points above the previous year’s high, and brand awareness rose from 61% in the previous year to an incredible 94%.

Best Marketing/PR Team

Winner – Total Gas & Power

This team stood out for the judges in no small part due to the Clarity of Purpose they have; to build Total’s profile as an expert business energy supplier, to generate sales leads, and to improve employee engagement.

In the two main campaigns of the year they made it their shared purpose to “be the voice of TGP”, as they put it. In the judges eyes this instinct to be roles models for the kind of culture and values you are communicating on behalf of, is an example that we can all learn from. Additionally, the judges were impressed with the resourcefulness of the team expressed through the way in which the diversity of expertise is encouraged and harnessed.

Brilliance in Recruitment and Retention -– CSHR

AstraZeneca - HR Brilliance Awards winner

M-IS - MPR Brilliance Awards Winners 2018

Fox Networks Group - MPR Brilliance Awards 2018

3 Step IT - MPR Brilliance Awards Winners 2018

DS Smith Recycling & Paper - BedKind - MPR Brilliance Awards

Adepto - Business bRilliance Awards 2018

VHRb - Business Brilliance Awards 2018 Winners

Chris Milligan - Business Brilliance Awards 2018