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KFC wins ultimate Grand Prix of Grand Prix at The Drum’s end of year awards wrap party

By Olivia Atkins, Branded Content Writer

December 10, 2021 | 5 min read

'How KFC Pressed Pause on the World’s Most Inappropriate Endline' has been crowned the Grand Prix of Grand Prix winner at The Drum's end-of-year wrap party celebrating all of our award winners from 2021.

How KFC Pressed Pause on the World’s Most Inappropriate Endline campaign for KFC took home the ultimate Grand Prix winner award at The Drum's wrap party last night.

How KFC Pressed Pause on the World’s Most Inappropriate Endline campaign for KFC took home the ultimate Grand Prix award.

Canada-based Zulu Alpha Kilo was also honored at the event as it was named agency of the year after picking up more of our awards this year than any other agency.

Over the course of the year The Drum Awards runs 18 competitions that recognize every part of the marketing ecosystem and each one has its own best-in-show Grand Prix prize. But to find out which was deemed to be the best of the best, we polled our readers and judges. Some 500 readers and 50 judges took part in the research, and when the findings from both polls were combined KFC emerged as the winner.

The much-admired campaign from Mindshare UK and Mother – which saw them temporarily rewrite the fast food giant's suddenly unfortunate Finger Lickin' Good slogan – took home our first ever best-in-all-of-the-shows prize after previously winning the Grand Prix at The Drum Awards for Marketing.

Read our in-depth story on the making of the KFC campaign here.

Three other campaigns were also highly ranked in our end of year polling. Joint second place was shared by two, albeit very different, gaming campaigns: PlayStation 5's attention-grabbing launch stunt in London and Home Equity Bank's formation of the World’s Oldest e-Sports Team.

The PlayStation campaign, created by MediaCom in collaboration with TfL, Red Consultancy and Diva Agency, took home the Grand Prix at The Drum Awards for Out of Home after generating a buzz around the world by trading out the iconic roundels of the Tube for PlayStation's own instantly recognizable symbols. It also won big at The Drum Roses Awards and The Drum Awards for Design.

Zulu Alpha Kilo's campaign for Home Equity Bank, meanwhile, had previously won top honors at The Drum Awards for the Digital Industries and The Drum Awards for Digital Advertising. The campaign paid homage to former war veterans by appealing to young video game influencers to consider how war is glorified in game environments.

Third place went to Aldi UK’s #FreeCuthbert campaign from McCann Manchester which depicted the legal battle between the supermarket chain and its rival retailer Marks & Spencer over caterpillar cake similarities. Aldi’s clever viral response tweet forever immortalised the brand.

The Wrap Party was designed as a way of marketing the end of The Drum Awards 2021 season.

This year the award ceremonies evolved from a hybrid style - created as a result of the pandemic - into a live TV format, live-streamed in front of a live studio audience at The Drum Labs in London.

“Born of necessity, we have discovered this new format has dramatically improved the awards by allowing us to put much more emphasis on the winning work, and address a larger global audience," said editor-in-chief and awards host Gordon Young.

The wrap party is a new initiative that allowed many of the winners from these shows to finally collect their awards in person. That included the team at Mindshare, there to pick up the night's grandest accolade on behalf of KFC: “This means a lot”, they told the audience, “we are really proud of the work, thanks for recognising it”.

Meanwhile Zac Mroueh, founder of Zulu Alpha Kilo, also joined the event via Zoom. When asked what advice he had for the room, he said: "Take risks leap and the net will appear... don’t be afraid to take risks and start an agency. Don’t be afraid to take chances."

The Agency of the Year accolade is just one of many such awards which The Drum will announce as part of its upcoming Review of 2021. Look out for more on thedrum.com in the coming weeks.

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