The Best of Global Digital Marketing Awards for March 2015

Last month, we monitored roughly 15 award shows from across the globe with a strong focus on hospitality marketing and MENA Cristal Awards. The top three offers great variety: a clever financial case from the UAE, crazy US YouTube superstars and yet another lovely app by Macca's Australia.

March 2015 winners

First place: HSBC's Global View/Global Transfer by Buzzman Middle East (UAE, MENA Cristal Festival Awards 2015 winner)

For the UAE, financial services can be compared to our body's circulatory system. 88% of the population need to make money transfers between their different bank accounts across the world. HSBC Global View/Global Transfer service enables you to do that in just six seconds. In order to demonstrate this speed, three YouTube pre-roll ads were broadcast to the global audience. The message was placed within a six second timeframe. The video cursor moves from left to right representing your money passing from one of your account to another. And thus, HSBC achieved a click-through rate three times higher than the average.

Second place: Choice Hotels' Vacay Gone Cray Cray by Doner, Havas Media, and Cohn & Wolfe (USA, Adrian Awards winner)

Today, Choice Hotels places its focus on Millennials as they will soon drive the midscale hotel category. To reach them in a relevant way, Choice Hotels rolled out a social media campaign. Relying on the fact that 57% of Millennials say they update social media every day while travelling. Curated by YouTube celebrities, Rhett & Link, people were invited to share their crazy vacation stories for a chance to win a $10,000 Trip Redo from Choice Hotels. The campaign site received 795K visits,4K entries and more than 186 million paid impressions.

Third place: McDonald's' Emlings app by Leo Burnett Sydney (Australia, Award Awards winner)

McDonald's wanted to bring back some magic into the iconic Happy Meal and create an engaging environment for the restaurant's little visitors. The new mobile and tablet app revealed a world of cute little creatures. After a successful launch, Emlings will be released internationally (New Zealand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, Korea and China).

Mc Donalds / Emlings from Colony on Vimeo.

To find out more about the awards, visit www.best-marketing.eu/about-awards.