WARC Media Awards 2017 – Effective Use of Tech Winners announced

A global campaign from German mobile operator Deutsche Telekom has won the Grand Prix in the Effective Use of Tech category of the WARC Media Awards, honouring communications planning which has made a positive impact on business results. 

The Best Use of Tech category recognises communications that have effectively used or combined emerging platforms or technology in the media mix. 

Apart from the Grand Prix, three Golds, two Silvers and four Bronzes have also been awarded. 

Additionally, three special awards for particular areas of expertise were given by the jury panel. The Early Adopter Award for how a brand successfully embraced a new platform; Most Scalable Idea Award, for a tech-led idea with the scope to make an impact within its sector and, potentially, beyond; and Best Use of Augmented or Virtual Reality Award for how enhancements through virtual or augmented reality – or both – helped a campaign fulfil its potential. 

Grand Prix winner Deutsche Telekom’s campaign, ‘Sea Hero Quest’, created in partnership with MediaCom and Saatchi & Saatchi, used a smartphone game to support research into dementia. The aim was to connect with consumers through its ‘life is for sharing’ brand belief by tackling the biggest threat to memory – dementia. 

The game measured spatial navigation to create a benchmark against which dementia could be measured in the future. Against a target of 100,000, Deutsche Telekom achieved 3 million downloads creating usable data, which is being analysed by researchers at two universities.This success has also had a positive effect on Deutsche Telekom’s brand, with an 18-point increase in brand approval in Germany. 

“As judges, we all agreed that the most important thing was how each of the winners used their marketing assets to help solve bigger societal problems aligned with their brand purpose,” said Kristi Argyilan, Senior Vice President of Marketing for Target, and Chair of the Jury. 

“That was especially true of our Grand Prix winner, Deutsche Telecom. They crafted a powerful and moving digitally-animated short story to bring awareness to the world’s first-ever mobile game designed to help fight dementia. Their work, along with the rest of our winners, speaks tremendously to how technology can help brands do great things for the world around us.” 

A Gold has been awarded to Australian agency The Monkeys for their ‘Dynamic Recruitment’ campaign for The University of Sydney. They used programmatic to deliver highly personalised ads, which led to an increase in postgraduate applications and a reduction in cost per acquisition. 

Kinetic and Mindshare in the UK won a Gold for their ‘Bigger Than Suicide’ campaign for Unilever’s Lynx. The brand worked with suicide charity CALM to create a series of digital out-of-home ads, which were integrated with a social media campaign to increase awareness of suicide among young men in the UK. 

The third Gold went to Mindshare Sri Lanka for ‘The campaign that saved 2,500 lives’, which saw insurance company Softlogic Life develop an SMS emergency hotline which was directly linked to the Disaster Management Center in order to help rescue the victims of floods during the monsoons in Sri Lanka. 

The full winners list of WARC’s Media Awards 2017 – Effective Use of Tech: 

Grand Prix
Sea Hero Quest· Deutsche Telekom· MediaCom, Saatchi & Saatchi· Global + Early Adopter Award 

Gold

• Dynamic recruitment· The University of Sydney· The Monkeys · Australia
• Bigger Than Suicide· Lynx· Unilever · Kinetic UK, Mindshare · United Kingdom
• The campaign that saved 2500 lives·Softlogic Life Insurance·Softlogic Holdings·Mindshare · Sri Lanka+Most Scalable Idea Award

Silver

• React to shamers· Always· Procter & Gamble· MediaCom·Israel+Best Use of Virtual Reality Award
• Smart = Sexy· Lifestyles, Blowtex· Ansell· Brazil, US

Bronze

• Inspiring weather to grill, or not · Johnsonville Fresh Bratwurst · Johnsonville Sausage Company ·CompassPoint Media · United States
• #AdaAQUA campaign with #PathDaily· AQUA · Danone· Havas Media · Indonesia
• Humans 2: Closer to perfect than ever before · Channel 4 · OMD UK, 4creative · United Kingdom
• From inside the plot·Fiat·People Initiative·Turkey