The 4A’s, the leading trade association representing the advertising agency business, closed out the first day of its flagship conference, Transformation, by unveiling the winners of the second annual 4A’s Partner Awards.
The 4A’s Partner Awards recognize creative excellence that can only be achieved through meaningful collaboration. The awards salute the remarkable partnerships that put ego aside and elevate creativity in the following categories: Brand, Cause, Creative, Diversity, Health & Wellness, Media, Pro Bono and Technology.
“We are living in the most entrepreneurial time ever, in a culture that thrives on ideas and partnerships. The excitement, for me personally, is about looking at brands, media and production with a ‘what if’ mindset to help us discover how we can be stronger and more innovative by working together,” said Matt Murphy, Partner/Executive Creative Director, 72andSunny. “It’s been a pleasure judging these awards, which are helping educate the industry by example and highlighting what’s possible through partnerships.”
“Unique partnerships like the ones we see in this show empower agencies and brands to discover truly creative solutions to marketplace challenges. This year’s entries are a testament to the innovation that happens through partnerships,” said Alison Fahey, Chief Marketing Officer, 4A’s. “We are very proud of this year’s winners’ circle and look forward to seeing some of this work move on to dominate the upcoming awards season.”
The 4A’s Partner Awards honor work in 8 categories with small, mid-sized and large agencies eligible in each.
Presented by National Geographic Channels as the exclusive sponsor, 4A’s Partner Awards winners were selected in the following categories:
- Brand Partnership: Large Agency—There are two winners in this category: CP+B won for its “Domino’s DXP” campaign, in which it partnered with automotive companies to build the ultimate pizza delivery vehicle with a built-in warming oven. Nearly 100 DXPs have been purchased by Domino’s franchisees around the country and began hitting the road in October 2015. VML also took home the award for its “LEGOLAND Dollars” campaign with partners LEGOLAND Florida Resort and Travelex. This initiative listed LEGOLAND Dollars on Foreign Exchange boards in 48 locations to get international travelers to add the destination to their vacation plans.
- Creative Partnership: Mid-Sized Agency—Mother New York won with partners Target, Vogue, Shazam and Haworth Media for “TargetStyle, In Vogue.” This campaign transformed a print media buy into a futuristic fashion flashback by reimagining iconic Vogue covers with Target products.
- Creative Partnership: Large Agency—BBDO New York won for “The Message” with partners GE, OMD + Giant Spoon and Panoply. The team built a GE-branded science fiction podcast to talk about its healthcare technology that uses acoustic sound waves; it became the No. 1-ranked podcast on iTunes in the U.S.
- Cause Partnership: Large Agency—Federation for Internet Alerts (FIA) and Conversant won with “Amber Could Have Been Saved” in partnership with GroupM, AppNexus, Rocket Fuel, xAd, AOL, Turn and 33Across. The group revolutionized the speed and geographical accuracy of AMBER Alerts. Within a second of receiving the notification of an alert, FIA messaging extracts and formats relevant information and then generates a dynamic alert with images and textual content that generate as HTML-creative display units across desktop and mobile devices—rendered and delivered within 40 milliseconds. FIA has delivered more than 800 million AMBER Alerts since May 2011—assisting in the rescue and return of 814 children—as well as over 10 million tornado warnings, saving countless lives.
- Diversity Partnership: Large Agency—Upworthy and partners the Ad Council and R/GA took home the award for “Love Has No Labels”; the campaign’s centerpiece was a video featuring an X-ray installation that hid the identities of real people with different genders, abilities and sexual orientation as they embraced, danced and kissed, to help combat bias.
- Health and Wellness Partnership: Large Agency—In this new category, Harrison and Star took home the award for “The Topographical Model of MS” with partners Stephen C. Krieger, M.D., and Corinne Goldsmith Dickinson Center for MS at Mount Sinai. This campaign used gaming technology to advance a new scientific theory in MS by creating customized maps of damage in the central nervous system to simulate the disease process in individual patients.
- Media Partnership: Large Agency—BBDO New York and partners PepsiCo, OMD/The Content Collective, Fox Studios, TBG and PMK*BNC won for “Pepsi + Empire Integration,” which integrated Pepsi into the hit show “Empire” and created a “meta” partnership that went so deep into the plot storyline that lines between brand and entertainment were completely erased.
- Pro Bono Partnership: Large Agency—Deutsch and partners Champions Against Bullying and Twitter took home the award for “The NiceBot,” a Twitter smart bot that delivered a positive message every 36 seconds, eventually reaching every single user on Twitter—all 300 million of them.
- Technology Partnership: Large Agency—MullenLowe, Mediahub and Royal Caribbean International were honored for “Come Seek Live” with partners Tool of North America, Coastal Media Group, Cemusa, Intersection and Periscope. This effort combined traditional out-of-home with social media and cellular technologies. Tapping the emerging social app Periscope’s live-streaming technology, the team showed people on the cold streets of New York City what they could be enjoying if they were on a Royal Caribbean cruise.
Two winners were elevated to special awards: Partnership of the Year, which went to Upworthy, the Ad Council and R/GA for “Love Has No Labels” and Most Innovative Partnership which was awarded to BBDO New York, GE, OMD + Giant Spoon and Panoply for “The Message.”
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