Effective Content Strategy winners for Warc Awards 2018 announced

Jury member Nick Kendall, founding partner of media broker Electric Glue.

FP7/Cairo, part of McCann Worldgroup, has won the Warc Awards' Grand Prix in the Effective Content Strategy category, rewarding branded content strategies that can demonstrate a business outcome, for its Coca-Cola campaign 'Hijacking the African Cup'.

Outshining the competition

Working on a variety of fronts, online and on the ground, Coca-Cola used an imaginative integrated campaign, hijacking the African Cup of Nations in Egypt without being the official sponsor and managing to outshine its competition on all awareness and brand parameters.

The results saw Coke's content shares numbered 111,000 vs Pepsi's 51,000; the Coke hashtag usage was 165,000 vs Pepsi's 55,000; awareness for the football association went up by 10% and brand love grew by 5 points in just a month.

The Grand Prix-winning campaign also won the Best Multiplatform special award for a content strategy that has successfully used a range of different communication channels.

Saliency is important

Commenting on the Grand Prix winner, jury member Nick Kendall, founding partner of media broker Electric Glue, said: "Saliency is so important to Coke and that's what they achieved - mental presence. They placed themselves on the fans' side and, most importantly, in their songs and therefore in their hearts."

The judging panel of 16 chaired by John Dokes, global chief marketing officer and general manager of AccuWeather Network, awarded a further four Golds, four Silvers and four Bronzes and two more special awards to campaigns that ran in Brazil, Egypt, India, Lebanon, Malaysia, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, United Kingdom and United States, for brands including Antarctica, EGBank, Orange and Whiskas.

The Warc Awards' Content Strategy winners are:

Grand Prix

• Hijacking the African Cup • Coca-Cola • The Coca-Cola Company • FP7/Cairo, Part of McCann Worldgroup • Egypt + Best Multiplatform Award

Gold

• Slow Trends • Connect • TBWA\RAAD • Lebanon + Smart Spender Award
• Unveil Saudi • Saudi Telecom Company • J. Walter Thompson • Saudi Arabia + The Long-Term Idea Award
• The Hammam Fighter • Orange • FP7/TUN • Tunisia
• The Chronicles of Oufa • EGBank • FP7/Cairo, Part of McCann Worldgroup • Egypt

Silver

• Escape the Dating Apocalypse • Hinge • Justin McLeod and various individual investors • the Studio • United States
• Ask Again • The Live Love Laugh Foundation • McCann Worldgroup • India
• 4G Films • Maxis • Maxis Berhad • Ensemble Worldwide, Initiative Malaysia • Malaysia
• Web Series • Antarctica • AB InBev • AlmapBBDO • Brazil 

Bronze

• Fair Sex Fair Say • i-can • Piramal Healthcare • McCann Worldgroup • India
• Dear Younger Me... • Emirates NBD • Momentum Egypt • Egypt
• Kitten Kollege • Whiskas • Mars Petcare • AMVBBDO • United Kingdom
• If you can dream it, you can Pylox it • Nippon Pylox • Nippon Paint • Ensemble Worldwide • Malaysia

All winners for the annual Warc Awards, a global case study competition in search for next-generation marketing effectiveness that focuses on the effective use of emerging marketing disciplines, have now been announced and can be viewed here.

The Warc Awards 2018 Report, providing an in-depth analysis, learnings and trends from the winners will be published in September 2018.