TDMC takes on some of SA's biggest advertising agencies - and wins Gold at the Smarties Awards

The Smarties Awards are hosted by MMA, and are the world’s only innovation award recognising leaders, brands, agencies, and tech providers that use technology to pioneer new approaches in modern marketing. This annual competition honours outstanding innovation and creativity resulting in significant business impact, and includes live pitch sessions with a panel of 17 judges.

TDMC’s Futurelife campaign was pitted against campaigns for the likes of ShopriteX, Shoprite Group of Companies for Xtra Savings and Sixty60, VMLY&R for Nando’s, and Futuretech Media for Heineken’s Shoppable Media Solution in the E-Commerce Marketing: Integrated E-Commerce Innovation Category. Each campaign was detailed across a multitude of measurables, including actual business results (40% of the entry mark), social impact, as well as direct ROI and ROAS figures.

The Futurelife D2C go-to-market campaign has been an important focus for TDMC for the past 15 months. “We have worked with fellow Durban business Futurelife for 2.5 years, and when MD Mark Bunn tasked us with launching an online store for them in just 60 days, we dived in,” says TDMC’s strategic business director, Nicola Ashe. “We knew that there would be challenges in delivering ROAS against products with relatively low basket value in the FMCG category, but we have always believed in the brand implicitly and were excited to take on the challenge of building a go-to-market strategy for Futurelife.”

The results were impressive. In the first 3 months, when it was expected the site might deliver 10 sales a day, TDMC achieved numbers that required Futurelife to completely rethink their fulfilment strategy, moving picking, packing and shipping from head office to a standalone facility. “What we thought might have been a 3-month novelty for customers proved to be just the start of an incredible 12-month journey for Futurelife, which continues to see their e-commerce store regularly in their Top 10 volume drivers,” says Ashe.

Managing director Cheryl Ingram says they leveraged an existing customer acquisition strategy that had been implemented six months prior to launch, alongside a robust digital marketing strategy that included paid media, tactical influencer collaborations and a clearly defined email and SMS marketing strategy that all worked collectively to fine tune every aspect of the customer journey. “This is what we do best when we have a blank canvas to work with and when a client trusts our knowledge and expertise enough to give us the space to do our best work,” says Cheryl.

Futurelife MD Mark Bunn, who was at the gala awards dinner with the TDMC team, is equally thrilled with the recognition the award brings. “This award is testimony to our continued journey of bringing our consumers closer to our brand to live healthier and happier lives in the smartest way possible. I am so proud of our internal team and our partner agency team who have worked relentlessly to make our D2C channel the phenomenal success that it is and still continues to be,” he says.

Durban-based retail marketing specialist TDMC was founded by director Cheryl Ingram in 2013 and in just a few years has flown to the top of the pile of expert agencies operating in the paid media realm. TDMC is one of only four accredited Shopify Experts in South Africa and is also a Google Business Partner and a Meta Business Partner. It prides itself on being a company that leads with innovation.

To win a Smarties Award is an outward sign of marketing expertise, mastery of the medium, and the ability to drive results. Smarties Award winners have demonstrated power over the medium, effectively weaving together a great idea, compelling creative and air-tight execution, to deliver significant business impact.

“We are so thrilled to have received the award and recognition for this campaign and are grateful for the opportunity to have been pitted against some of the country’s best agencies. Awards like this keep us motivated and determined to continue to do our very best in achieving tangible results for our clients,” says Ingram.