OMG Networks Earn Top Honors at the Campaign Media Awards

Winner, The CRM & Media Award | “CRM – the Hero of Growth in a Retail Start Up” – Hearts & Science UK for Hope Fashion: Created by the team which established Per Una for Marks & Spencer, Hope Fashion aims to tap into what women over 50 want to look, feel and be. Yet despite its expertise and a strong product range, the challenges of being a start-up combined with wider retail struggles made for a tough business environment. Hope wanted to get a deeper understanding of its target audience, such as their behaviours, and attitudes, to get a better picture of how to reach them effectively through marketing. Hearts & Science created a value-based segmentation, developing four different customer segments, from bronze to platinum. It also profiled behaviour on site, locations, purchase values, and highest indexing mosaic groups. This value model was updated and refined daily, becoming the central insight engine for all of Hope’s marketing activities, informing everything from retargeting frequency to eCRM management. Hope has seen its CRM database grow by 22% with the two highest value segments (gold and platinum) growing by 30%. The database is also being used with third party data partnerships to identify media and brand partners aligned with Hope and its customers’ values.

Winner, Travel & Leisure | “Advertising Isn’t Always the Answer” – Manning Gottlieb OMD for Virgin Trains: In the summer of 2018, amidst a wealth of negative PR, we were concerned that an emotional ad wouldn’t be enough to increase brand sentiment towards Virgin Trains. So, we worked together with our client to develop a business idea to inspire weekend travel spontaneity by removing peak fares on a Friday. To bring this new pricing model to life we developed a campaign around a spontaneous lifestyle including partnerships with Spotify and TimeOut as well as integrating an Alexa skill to allow direct bookings through voice. Our radical approach generated astounding results with additional revenue every Friday, reduced overcrowding (improving the customer experience) and significant brand uplift. It was so successful that Virgin Trains have now permanently lifted peak restrictions on Fridays, changing their business for good.

Winner, Corporate & Utilities | “The ESPN Luck Index Powered by Intel” – OMD UK for Intel: To showcase Intel’s superior processing power, the technology brand and OMD UK partnered with ESPN and the University of Bath to launch The Luck Index, a study examining how the Premier League would look if adjusted to account for luck. The partnership was part of Intel’s wider brand campaign promoting its 8th Gen Core Processors and Optane Memory, which highlight the capabilities its hardware offers with the “Not that you would… but you could” messaging. The team involved had two months to collect, analyse and forecast data from all 380 Premier League games. Using a predictive model, hundreds of data points were analysed and the role luck played on the final result was quantified, all of which was powered by the latest Intel technology. The results of the research – which showed that Manchester United was the luckiest team in the league last season, promoted debate up and down the country, with Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp having his say too. The campaign garnered coverage across national news outlets, including BBC Sport and Sky Sports, generated thousands of social comments and also featured additional content as part of the partnership with ESPN.

Winner, Public Sector & Charities | “Understand Me” – OMD UK for NSPCC: In the face of rising instances of children suffering racial and religious discrimination in the UK, Childline asked us to help them convince BAME children that the service was there for them. We partnered with one of the UK’s foremost grime music publishers – SBTV. Together we identified four diverse artists, each with their own personal experiences of racial or religious discrimination. Our artists produced bespoke tracks that communicated to our young audience on their own terms and encourage them to speak up.

Winner, Best Social Strategy | “Pumpkin Spice Latte” – Manning Gottlieb OMD for Starbucks: Starbucks’ Pumpkin Spice Latte (PSL) is an institution, with previous campaigns establishing the drink as a social and cultural icon. But Manning Gottlieb OMD faced several challenges promoting the drink in 2018. It had to work with a vastly reduced budget and a growing backlash to the tried and tested ‘promote PSL as a status symbol’ approach. The solution was to offer PSL fans something that acknowledged the ‘basic’ in us, by creating some witty stickers and gifs with Instagram and sharing them with a ‘Pumpkin Head’ audience. While gifs could be created, however, they couldn’t be promoted, as Giphy, the gif partner of Instagram, didn’t offer advertising. It was back to the drawing board – literally. Thousands of stories were analysed to explore how the brand appeared and what images, phrases and styles were used positively around PSL. Manning Gottlieb OMD then hand-drew 12 images and tagged and optimised these like a web page, with multiple keywords, sizes and sub-categories. Within 48 hours, the gifs were shared one million times; a week later, shares hit four million. The campaign delivered a global reach of 18.5m, surpassing sales of PSL to the point of sell-through by week three of the six-week campaign, all whilst maintaining positive sentiment and brand love of 85%.

Winner, Creative Idea | “Rammed with Confidence” – PHD with Volkswagen: The creative idea behind the launch of Volkswagen’s T-Roc aimed to bring driver confidence to life through media. The character of ‘Bam The Ram’ – a little ram which bursts out of the T-Roc campaign and literally rams into other brands’ ads, was at the heart of the campaign. There were 51 specially-created media formats across five types of media, with 11 different media partners. These featured Bam ‘invading’ the current ad campaigns of other brands, including Wall’s, Virgin Atlantic, Admiral Insurance, Castle Howard and Harvey Nichols. The campaign launched on TV with a series of specially-made ad breaks across Sky’s channel portfolio in which Bam smashed through the screen of Admiral and Virgin Atlantic’s ads, before his own ad was broadcast. Bam then ‘rammed’ into other formats, including digital out of home, newspaper and social media, while a special-build out of home saw Bam break out of a physical billboard. Customer demand outstripped supply and T-Roc became the UK’s most successful small SUV launch for seven years. T-Roc’s website became the most visited car model site of any car in the UK, while consideration for the Volkswagen brand also increased.

Winner, Automotive | “Rammed with Confidence” – PHD with Volkswagen Group: How bringing driver confidence to life through media made the Volkswagen T-Roc the UK’s most successful small SUV launch in 7 years.