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NZDM Awards: Saatchi and ASB nab supreme, JustOne/.99 claims biggest haul, Foodstuffs crowned direct marketing organisation of the year

Every year, with the growing prominence of data, the skills used in direct marketing to target specific segments with personalised messaging becomes more important to marketers. For this reason, direct marketing is shifting from the fringes, where it existed as uncool but necessary, to play a key role in the industry. And as was indicated by the creativity on show at this year’s edition at the annual New Zealand Direct Marketing Awards, the industry is also doing a good job at improving its cool factor. 

Nowhere was this more evident than in the grand prix award, which this year went to ASB and its agencies Saatchi & Saatchi for the ‘Snap Scholarship’ campaign targeting university students. This major gong capped off a great night that also saw the campaign pick up a further three golds. 

“These awards are testament to the great partnership we share with ASB,” says Saatchi & Saatchi managing director Paul Wilson.  “Their creative standards and commitment to constant innovation are what’s driving us to deliver effective, engaging campaigns like ‘Snap Scholarships’.”

This campaign also won Gold at the 2015 New Zealand Effie Awards in the ‘Most Effective Digital’ category. 

In commenting on the win, ASB general marketing manager Shane Evans spoke of the difficulty involved in taking on a new social channel.  

“This is a stellar result so congratulations to the whole team at ASB and Saatchi & Saatchi who all worked incredibly hard to open up this new channel to deliver outstanding results. It’s a great demonstration and recognition of how we can use data and insights to drive results.”

Another big winner on the night was Data Insight, which followed on from its strong performance in last year’s TVNZ-NZ Marketing Awards by picking up the Nexus Supreme Award. 

The judges commended this entry on account of the level of difficulty involved in creating a revenue stream out of data insights. 

“In a highly competitive environment, the transformation of the property data into usable information for customers was fantastic,” said the Nexus Supreme judging panel. “Blending a range of diverse data sources, Valocity presents customers with actionable property data in an intuitively useable form.”

The creation of Valocity and its subsequent success is particularly impressive given that the initiative was able to compete with Property IQ, which some industry commentators interpreted as a monopolised system.

Without the bravery and investment of clients, we wouldn’t have a marketing industry at all. And this year, the award celebrating the marketing organisation of the year went to Foodstuffs. 

“One of New Zealand’s biggest businesses has transformed itself into a data-driven organisation; marketing-led but impacting the whole organisation,” said the judging panel.  

“The customer-driven journey delivered great customer engagement and results. This is a journey that will become an academic treatise in the future.”

JustOne managing director Ben Goodale, who works on the Foodstuffs account, said this award was really testament to the quality of the client’s strategic thinking. 

“This is not an award you win by accident,” Goodale said. “It’s all based on ROI and business results.”

Goodale and his agency also had very busy night, with JustOne picking up five golds, four silvers and seven bronzes across six different clients (four of these awards were won jointly with .99). 

“The buzz in the office is sensational this morning,” said Goodale, in a slightly huskier-than-usual voice.

Goodale said it was particularly rewarding to win across a range of clients, because it showed the agency was capable of developing effective campaigns for different clients with varying budget constraints (six of these awards came for the agency’s work with AMP).

The next biggest haul went to Colenso BBDO/Proximity, which won 13 awards for work done with Mars Pedigree, BNZ, Tip Top and the New Zealand Breast Cancer Foundation. 

Not far behind was FCB with 12 awards, six of which were won with Air New Zealand.

In addition to this half dozen, the Kiwi airline also won three more gongs in conjunction with Westpac for the promotion of their Airpoints partnership launched last year.

Rounding out the big winners on the night were Republik, which won five golds for the Haus of Versant campaign developed for Fuji Xerox; Young & Shand won a gold, three silvers and a bronze across four different campaigns ; and Rainger & Rolfe, which also won five gongs (a gold and four bronzes) for its role in campaigns for AA Smartfuel and AA Life.

And the big individual award for direct marketer of the year went to Mark Thompson, customer experience manager at Mitre 10.

After all the gongs were handed out last night, the partying didn’t stop. Many of the 500 people in attendance then headed off to various bars across the city. And while there were no reports this year of broken toes following from over-exuberant celebrations, there were undoubtedly quite a few sore heads around ad land today.

Here are full list of winners from the night:

Correction: The Agency Perception issue of NZ Marketing magazine wrongly attributed the MyCountdown victory at the New Zealand Direct Marketing Awards to Foodstuffs on page 92. The victory went to Countdown. We were provided the information from the Marketing Association and apologise for the error.

This story also wrongly crowned Foodstuffs as the winner of the Direct Marketing Organisation of the Year. That award also went to Countdown.

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