Winners of The Drum Awards for Digital Advertising APAC

As Covid-19 continues to limit the possibility of in-person events, the results were revealed at a virtual ceremony. Catch up below if you missed it.

This year’s Grand Prix was awarded to OMD New Zealand, whose work for McDonald's New Zealand also won Best Cross-Platform Campaign.

The Chair’s Award went to Octagon, for Standard Chartered. It was awarded by this year’s chair of the jury, Asha Gourinath, lead for digital marketing and customer relationship management in Southeast Asia and growth markets at Grab.

You can find out more about the winning work below.

Grand Prix/Best Cross-Platform Campaign

Agency: OMD New Zealand

Client: McDonald's New Zealand

Campaign: Is it still a Big Mac? McDonalds New Zealand Poll the Public

In business as in art, it generally pays not to mess with a classic. But with their client McDonald’s challenged by a new generation of burger-based start-ups, OMD New Zealand decided to make some changes. Turning a seemingly frivolous question into a national debate got the people of New Zealand involved, and delivered remarkable results.

This was a good year for OMD New Zealand, who also picked up awards for Best Publisher Innovation and Best Mobile Campaign

What the judges said: This campaign was a clear standout. The execution, sheer profitability and concept were all excellent.

Chair’s Award/Best High Impact Campaign

Agency: Octagon, MediaMonks

Client: Standard Chartered

Campaign: Project Stand Red: Bob Paisley

Octagon was tasked with showcasing Standard Chartered’s global leadership in technology and innovation. Knowing few people are interested in hearing about fintech and banking innovation, the agency decided to leverage the platform of Standard Chartered’s main partner, Liverpool Football Club.

The beauty of technology lies in its ability to create human connections. Octagon tapped into this and successfully delivered on a difficult brief for its client.

What the Chair said: “This was a great brand-building exercise. I am sure that in the long run, Standard Chartered will benefit from the audiences who were engaged during this prospecting phase. The path is, campaigns will lead to conversion.

“Marketing campaigns often evaluated only on the basis of performance KPIs. However, the success of this campaign comes from its story-telling aspect. It no doubt struck a chord with consumers, who will share it organically with friends and family.“

Best Video Campaign

Agency: Critical Mass

Client: Infiniti Global and Infiniti Korea

Campaign: Infiniti QX60 Social Media Campaign for Korea

To raise brand awareness and increase sales in Korea, Critical Mass built a social media campaign that allowed users to customize their ad experience on Facebook. Consumers were led through a unique, full-funnel purchasing journey that matched every detail of their lifestyle. It allowed them to see the QX60 in real-life scenarios, explore the vehicle’s adaptability and book a test drive, all without leaving Facebook.

The campaign earned major results, generating 19.6m impressions, 2.4m video views and boosted sales an extraordinary 33%.

What the judges said: “Infiniti exhibited a comprehensive approach to leveraging video within social, employing a through the funnel approach including video for demand generation, innovation with dynamic content optimisation (DCO) and business-based outcome KPIs as success metrics.“

Best Use of Gaming

Agency: Acquire NZ

Client: StudioCanal

Campaign: Level Up!

Given the growth of gaming and e-sports around the world, advertiser StudioCanal wanted to explore gaming as a medium to advertise movie releases. Acquire were able to devise a viewable-time based measurement system and used a variety of ad placements in both in-game and gaming-adjacent environments.

Through in-game integrated advertising, playable ads, incentivized ads, and advertising around competitive gaming content, they drove 3.2 times more engagement and 1.8 times more traffic to ticketing sites for two of StudioCanal’s releases.

What the judges said: “The targeting and media placement strategy surgical and very relevant. A great mix of media channels that were unique based on audience segments, and a solid articulation of objectives and KPIs.

“It used a great strategy of looking at user attention to measure effective awareness, as opposed to pure reach. Not all reach is quality reach. The bidding at a cost per second, was the team thinking on their feet and ensuring they could measure ROI the best possible manner given limitations on the tracking front.“

Most Effective Media Agency

Agency: ADA

ADA is a data and artificial intelligence company that designs and executes integrated digital, analytics, and marketing solutions. Based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, they operate in 9 markets in South and Southeast Asia – Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines, Singapore, Cambodia, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and South Korea.

Powered by data, ADA complements its unique digital expertise with deep proprietary data from 375 million consumers, 400,000 monthly apps, and 1 million places of interest.

What the judges said: “ADA made a big impact on us. We were impressed by their client testimonial and case studies – building years-long relationships with care, enthusiasm and by delivering pivotal results.“

A complete list of winners is available at the website for The Drum Awards for Digital Advertising (APAC).

The Drum is proud to present these awards with the support of our partners: AdColony, Ad-Lib, DoubleVerify, Ogury, Winmo and Xandr.