JUDGE & JURY

I’ve been busy judging the PR Moment Awards this week. It’s always an interesting job. Comms heads barricaded into one room with pastries, water and a directive to agree on which campaigns delivered in 2018, is….lively. And also because it annually reminds me that, as comms people, we still use waaaay too many words in award entries (visuals, people, more visuals!) and not enough hard and fast results. 

But it’s great to have the head space to stand back and confirm the strategies and creatives that are really cutting through for clients at the moment.

I’ve got two key takeaways from this year’s batch:

·      Creativity is becoming even more purposeful

o  The continued rise of social purpose brand marketing campaigns is only getting stronger as marketers see the benefits for their bottom line as well as their brand. Those creative ideas that have an authentic and mission-led purpose at their heart are delivering the best results. And, because we know this, as an industry we’re getting even more creative with activations that spread cause-related messages more widely than ever before. 

·      Disciplines and channels are blurring – with great results 

o  Campaigns that blur the boundaries and work across all channels are working really well across all sectors. Campaigns that start on social with a clever, simple creative activation and build momentum organically tend to already have engaged audiences before they hit the mainstream – see Rankin’s amazing campaign on social about selfies and ‘selfie harm’ as a current, really powerful and visual example of this.  

Our strategy director Elly is gearing up for her judging stint next month at the Sabres, so it’ll be interesting to see which other insights and innovations unfold there.