AME Awards World’s Best Advertising & Marketing Effectiveness Announces 2014 shortlist
The AME Awards® for the World’s Best Advertising & Marketing Effectiveness™ has announced its shortlist for the 2014 competition. The GrandJury® members, comprised of interactive and multidisciplinary marketers, planners, and creatives from all over the world, selected the Shortlist from entries submitted from 22 countries worldwide. Worldwide since 1994, the AME Awards honors campaigns that successfully demonstrate solutions to marketing problems.
The 2014 Shortlist exhibited multiple trends this year, including campaigns recruiting celebrities to promote brands, event marketing, cause marketing, and branded entertainment. The AME Awards’ Branded Entertainment category, launched in 2013, saw the following shortlisted brands take center stage: Oreo, Mercedes-Benz, Durex, Cornetto, and Adobe.
Integrated/Mixed Media category entries gained brand awareness with 7 agencies shortlisted: Leo Burnett Worldwide Melbourne; PHD Network China; FRED & FARID PARIS; Heimat Berlin; DDB Tribal Group GmbH Germany; Saatchi & Saatchi LA; and Starcom MediaVest Worldwide USA.
The newly launched Social Video category saw social-savvy brands driving engagement and moving on to the shortlist: OMD USA, “Jeff Gordon: Test Drive” for Pepsi Max; Abby Norm Sweden, “Photoshop Live—Street Retouch Prank” for Adobe; and Marcus Thomas LLC USA, “Krylon ColorMaster Challenge: 24 Projects in 24 Hours” for spray paint leader Krylon.
Celebrities were in the spotlight with campaigns enlisting star-power to promote brands: Lukas Lindemann Rosinski GmbH / Syzygy GmbH Germany “Mercedes-Benz: MacGyver and the new Citan” featured action hero MacGyver; PHD Network China “Love In Different Tense” recruited popular Chinese actors Chen BoLing and Ke ChenDong, and singer Fu XinBo for client Cornetto; and BBDO China’s “Gillette Shave Sexy” plea for the return of wet shaving enlisted famous Japanese adult movie star Aoi Sora. Non-human “stars” were featured in Saatchi & Saatchi LA’s “Tundra Endeavor,” a live event chronicling the Toyota Tundra towing of the 300,000-lb Space Shuttle Endeavour; and Heimat Berlin’s “Hornbach Hammer,” which starred an old Soviet tank melted down to create a limited-edition hammer.
Event marketing engaged consumer participation: Bartle Bogle Hegarty China “The Digital Earth Hour – Reaching Millions of People in 1 Hour” programmed a piece of code that digitally turned off the “lights” on social sites in support of WWF China; FRED & FARID PARIS “TaiChipHop” combined Tai Chi and Hip Hop for French fitness brand Domyos; Saatchi & Saatchi Fallon Tokyo “Godiva Love & Hug Project” invited women to test their hug-power for Godiva; Jack Morton Worldwide USA “LEGO Star Wars Secrets to Reveal” unveiled a life-size Star Wars X-Wing in New York City’s Times Square; and Heimat Werbeagentur GmbH “All Eyes on S4” for Swisscom designed an interactive billboard that challenged consumers to a staring contest.
Shortlisted entries championing worthy causes include: Leo Burnett Worldwide Melbourne “Volunteer to Promote Volunteering” for SEEK Volunteer enlisted media owners, with celebs and real people volunteering their media space; SapientNitro USA “Trafficking in Traffic” for End It Movement, a campaign illustrating the horrors of sex trafficking; J. Walter Thompson-Bridge Advertising Co., LTD China “Missing Children,” a campaign for BAOBEIHUIJIA.COM ‘Baby Back Home,’ featuring a face recognition app to aid in locating missing children; Grey Düsseldorf GmbH Germany “Lost Choir” for International Children’s Fund raised awareness for dying children worldwide with a choir performance; Agency59 “The UnDeading” for Heart&Stroke Foundation created a record-breaking one day CPR training challenge; and Serviceplan Germany “Troy Davis – I Am Alive” for client Alive created an online campaign to abolish the death penalty.
Germany took the lead this year with 33 entries, and Heimat Berlin saw 10 of their entries moving on to the medal round. The United States were honored with 19 shortlisted entries; China with 11; and France with 10, with FRED & FARID PARIS with 8 entries advancing. In addition, Australia moved ahead with 6; Philippines with 5; Japan 3; Brazil, Canada, Malaysia, and Sweden each saw 2 entries move forward; and Hong Kong, New Zealand, and United Arab Emirates were each honored with one.
On the regional front, Serviceplan Middle East’s entry in the sports and leisure category ,“Lufthansa Ramadan Rewards” has moved onto the medal round.
