Bristol agency Indicia has scooped the grand prix at this year’s DMA Awards – the first time an agency based outside London has won the top prize in years – with a campaign designed to break the online retailer Very.co.uk into the mum-and-baby market.
The campaign claimed gold in two of the DMA’s 35 categories, with the agency – formed by the merger of Entire and Marketing Databasics back in 2010 – also picking up gold for its campaign for Tourism Ireland.
Other big winners on the night included OgilvyOne London, which took home five golds, and Tullo Marshall Warren, Publicis Chemistry, Stephens Francis Whitson, Lida, MC&C, Being London and Tangible, which each claimed two golds.
Very.co.uk commissioned Indicia to help it enter the highly competitive mum-and-baby market, dominated by a number of big brands. To increase market visibility, a microsite was created to host a web-based catwalk fashion show titled ‘Work it Baby’ that showcased products for mums, mums-to-be, babies and toddlers. An audience was built from users of mothers interest websites, such as Mumsnet, and were teased with backstage invitations to the fashion show. The integrated campaign featured mailpacks, animated banner ads, Facebook ads, Tweets and personalised emails. The campaign generated 121,000 microsite visits, 4,800 new customers and sold 11,000 products.
Sponsored by TNT Post, entries were judged by 200 senior professionals with judging teams comprising copywriters, art directors, data planners, media buyers, planners, clients and sector specialists.
Lord Smith, chairman of the ASA and former Culture Secretary, served as the chair of the 2011 DMA Awards Panel of Judges. Commenting on the grand prix winner, Lord Smith said: “Indicia’s Very Mum and Baby campaign for Very.co.uk stood out because of its genuinely innovative approach to the use and coordination of new media.
“Faced with low recognition results at the outset, they thought intelligently about how to get messages out to their target audience, how to encourage responses from potential customers, how to draw consumers in, and how to drive customer leads and product sales.
“The result has been a higher profile and more sales. This wasn’t just using online space to reiterate messages from traditional space; it was using online space in a new and highly creative way.”
To view the full list of winners at the 2011 DMA Awards, visit: www.dmaawards.org.uk
