The FMBE awards – my personal top100 (45-41)

45 JPMH, Compeed (2009 Targeting)

One of the most glittering ‘experiential’ award winners ever, with global success for the agency, but no gold with us. Did my judges get this one wrong by awarding silver to JPMH and Compeed.? Well, yes and no. The debate, was it a live brand experience at all or more honestly a lovely strategic sampling and sales promotion campaign?

This is the dilemma. Compeed had the best results, no doubt really about that. They did brilliantly with nightclub sampling via face to face and dispensing machines that moved the plaster brand into a whole new success area as a heel protection accessory. But it was hard to put the success down to anything immersive. The big idea was enough in itself, and why Compeed hadn’t thought outside the sports box before was anyone’s guess.

This was a brilliantly executed campaign that had proper legacy. In terms of the results is is one of the best we have ever seen, its just that the live activity wasn’t very compelling.

An agency rarely gets a chance to open a market leading brand’s eyes to vast new market potential as happened here in what seemed to me more of a field marketing rather than brand experience success – targeted sampling followed up with a clear execution of the sales promotion at retail.

44 Branded Moments of Truth, School Food Trust (2009, Campaign Evaluation)

This team won gold in 2008 for the campaign and in 2009 for the evaluation, but the evaluation was marginally the better win of the two as every aspect of this school’s roadshow was put under the microscope.

The roadshow itself put junk food under scrutiny with celeb chefs showing kids recipes made from junk ingredients and tasting them in comparison with nicer stuff available in the canteen.

Post-event questionnaires, feedback sessions and online were deployed to sustain the messages that came out of the campaign.

43 i2i and Brando, Dr Oetker (2009 Immersive Event, mass consumer)

Here’s one where we did agree with the IPM (then ISP) gold winner,  a comprehensive consumer journey centred around a lead event at Legoland and followed up using a roadshow sampling activity at stores converting recall into sales for Paula, the custard desert. Brando delivered the PR excellence. i2i made sure that the activity was a sales driver. Both can claim credit for brand awareness that helped Paula reach sales of £2.3 million in 9 months following launch.

42 Carbon, Sharpie (2008, Sampling)

The Sharpie product was the hero that helped aid Carbon to agency of the year gold in 2008. The campaign itself was creatively clever and engaged by using the markers on Buddy, a blank canvas cartoon-like sculpture, with multiple textures to encourage the ‘on any surface’ experience. A clever online site also mimicked the idea.

Buddy had a 5 minute set up and derig, so he could go where the crowds were.

Sharpie enjoyed market leadership a matter of months after this launch.

41 Sledge, Peugeot (2006, Evaluation)

Sledge’s only FMBE win to date, and it wasn’t for one of their big gigs but for leaving the rest of the industry standing when it came to assessing buzz and word of mouth. The campaign detail seems largely irrelevant now, but Sledge’s text message permission survey at three main touchpoints tested the success of each of 3 locations, Fitness First, Toni and Guy and a roadshow. They also used depth interviews – 15 seventy five minute video interviews – to provide Peugeot with detailed insight into how the brand and its marketing was perceived.