Leo Burnett, Melbourne scores Gold Award for ‘Reword’ at WARC Awards for Social Strategy

Leo Burnett Melbourne has scored one of five Gold Awards for Headspace Youth Mental Health Foundation’s ‘Reword’ campaign in the Social Strategy category of the inaugural WARC awards 2017, a new global competition honouring the effective use of emerging marketing disciplines.

The Social Strategy category, which rewards the best case studies linking social strategy to business success, currently one of the most important issues in marketing and communications, was judged by a 17-stong panel of senior industry experts chaired by Quinn Kilbury, senior brand director, Heineken US. Five Golds, four Silvers and four Bronzes have been awarded.

Of the 13 winning campaigns, three are from Australia, two are global campaigns, two UK and two US, alongside one each from Germany, North America, Singapore and UAE.

Gold winner ‘Reword’ by Leo Burnett Melbourne and Studio Pancho in Australia, shows how Headspace, an Australian youth mental health foundation, successfully tackled cyber bullying by putting in place a social media rewording tool.

McCann Melbourne has scored a Silver for Bic ‘The Bic 4 Colour World Champenships’ and a Bronze for Seeing Eye Dogs Australia ‘Free Puppies Forever’.

Broadcaster BT Sport’s Gold winning entry created BT in house shows how it successfully kicked off its summer programming in the UK with a campaign that recreated famous football moments and asked fans to submit their own.

Commenting on the #GoalsRecreated campaign, jury member Lex Bradshaw-Zinger, regional digital director, MEA, L’Oreal says: “It was well done with different layers and talked around the content. It was very interesting and really social.”

Reese’s ‘Creating Confusion’ Gold winning campaign by Ketchum shows how the chocolate brand was able to successfully launch its newest product in North America despite a major information leak.

Says WARC judge Glen Kushner, senior strategist,aAdvanced analytics, Converseon: “This brand had the courage to see where the conversation took them and a lot of brands have a tough time giving up that control.”

Says David Wilding, director of planning, Twitter UK: “It was a simple solution to a real, difficult and complex problem. They’ve done something that makes a tangible difference to the way people behave.”

MullenLowe Boston’s campaign ‘FlyBabies’ for airline brand JetBlue, won a Gold for increasing brand awareness and sales in the US by showing flyers and mothers alike that they understand the hardships of a crying baby on a flight.

Says judge Mobbie Nazir, chief strategy officer, We Are Social: “They turned a negative into a positive and the topicality of it was great.”

Bartle Bogle Hegarty (UK) Gold winning entry ‘Dirty Louisiana – don’t make dirty good, make clean bad’ for the fast food brand, KFC, created a humorous fake ‘clean eating’ campaign to successfully launch its newest product in the UK.

Rachel Mercer, vice-president, head of digital strategy, Deutsch NY: “Their insight, story- telling and results were impressive. They really nailed the irreverent nature of the brand and I liked how data-driven it was, using the sentiment analysis around clean eating.”

The list of Gold, Silver and Bronze winners are:

Gold

BT Sport · #GoalsRecreated · BT (in house) · United Kingdom

Reese’s · Creating Cupfusion · Ketchum · United States

Headspace National Youth Mental Health Foundation · Reword – Changing Online Bullying Behaviour · Leo Burnett Melbourne, Studio Pancho · Australia

JetBlue · FlyBabies · MullenLowe Boston · United States

KFC · Dirty Louisiana: Don’t Make Dirty Good, Make Clean Bad · BBH · United Kingdom

Silver

Always · Girl Emojis #LikeAGirl · Starcom UK, Leo Burnett Chicago · Global

Bic · The Bic 4 Colour World Champenships · McCann Melbourne · Australia

Dubai Foundation for Women & Children · Stop Tapping · FP7 Dubai · United Arab Emirates

Gucci Guilty · Dark to Light · MediaCom · Global

Bronze

Maybelline · #BeYourOwnFilter · TBWA\ Group Singapore · Singapore

JetBlue · Reach Across the Aisle · MullenLowe Boston · United States

Seeing Eye Dogs Australia · Free Puppies Forever · McCann Melbourne · Australia

Unknown User · Unknown Potential · PHD Germany · Germany

View here the Social Strategy Gold, Silver and Bronze winners as well as the winners of the Effective Content Strategy category.

The winners of Best Use of Brand Purpose will be announced on 18 September.  The winners of all the Grands Prix and Special awards will be revealed at a free-to-attend ‘Learnings of the WARC Awards’ event in London on 20 September. Register here to attend.