This week on the 6th December the winners of the 2023 Effie Awards Europe were announced in Maison de la Poste in Brussels. Outstanding entries were awarded the Gold Effie, McCann Worldgroup scooped the Grand Effie and got the Agency Network of the Year title.
Over 140 industry professionals from more than 20 European countries contributed their time and insight to identify the most effective work of the year. The jury, co-chaired by Ayesha Walawalkar, Chief Strategy Officer, MullenLowe Group UK, and Catherine Spindler, Deputy CEO of LACOSTE, awarded 50 trophies to almost 40 agencies from 16 countries across Europe.
The prestigious Grand Effie Jury, moderated by Leonard Savage, Chief Creative Officer at McCann Prague, decided that "Kevin versus John - How a humble carrot usurped a national treasure to win the UK’s Christmas Ad crown" campaign for Aldi UK & Ireland was the single best case submitted this year and proclaimed it as the Grand Effie Winner. By consistently investing in Kevin for 6 years, and not being seduced by the desire for novelty and innovation, Aldi took on the established giants John Lewis and Coca-Cola to become the UK’s most effective and favourite Christmas advertising. Kevin was declared ‘The Nation’s Favourite Christmas Ad’ in 2020, and again in 2021, even surpassing the iconic ‘Coke Truck’. Most importantly Kevin helped to deliver a 6-year value share growth of 54%, £618m in incremental revenue and an overall ROMI of 241%.
Ahead of the Awards Gala, the organiser hosted the Effie Forum, a flagship event conceived to further champion marketing effectiveness and help promote and inculcate the effectiveness culture within clients and agencies. One of the event highlights was Kantar’s Věra Šídlová, Global Creative Thought Leadership Director, presenting the results of "The secrets behind ideas that work" research. The study draws out five key lessons for creating effective advertising from Effie Europe winning ads:
- Release your inner David – Marketers need to invest in identifying how people see their brand and the key barriers to growth. With a laser-focused strategy, creativity can make smaller budgets punch above their weight.
- Embrace your brand – Many of the ads examined in the study leverage a key aspect from the brand’s heritage or existing associations to set it apart from others. Marketers should commit to this via a long-term strategy to strengthen their brand.
- Shock with substance - To drive positive change, advertisers need to go beyond shock for shock’s sake. Surprising audiences in an educational manner is a surefire way to engage hearts and change minds.
- Create cultural moments – Brands can intrigue and captivate audiences with content that transcends marketing, by creating the song that gets stuck in their heads, the show they can’t wait to watch or a music video they can’t turn away from.
- Bring funny (business) back – Marketers shouldn’t overlook the power of making people smile. Humour is effectiveness dynamite, and is underused in the broader marketing landscape.
Věra Šídlová, Global Creative Thought Leadership Director – Creative, Kantar, said: “Kantar is proud to join forces with Effie Awards Europe. Both organisations have demonstrated a long-standing commitment to creative effectiveness; so we are natural allies in the quest to make marketing deliver results. Using Link AI, Kantar’s AI-powered ad testing solution, we were able to assess hundreds of Effie winning ad creatives to learn from the best how to make creative that works. One of the standout findings is that many of the ads we evaluated aren’t just great standalone pieces of work, but draw on the brand’s heritage and strengths. It’s a powerful reminder for marketers that consistency and embracing their brand’s unique assets and associations is key to creative that stands out from the crowd.”
