The work that inspired in 2020

Mary Gerzema, SVP Regional Digital Marketing and Media at Shiseido:

“The T-Mobile Project 10 Million initiative has committed billions to close the “homework gap” and provide internet access and connectivity to families and students that are being left behind by the pandemic’s impact on education and the loss of an in-person classroom experience for millions of kids of all ages. Many companies launched ads that acknowledge how COVID-19 has affected us but T-Mobile has eclipsed that by providing solutions and demonstrating that what a company does is more important that what it says.”

Brian Yuyi, CEO at the Marketing Association of South Africa:

“It is very hard to look beyond the ravages of the Covid-19 pandemic in terms of work done in the marketing space. Brands, products, services did what they had to do to survive but I think more important is the work that organizations such as the World Health Organisation did to get the word out. The politics of health and finger-pointing aside, there have been some great initiatives that the WHO, governments and health institutions have implemented. Top of mind is the WhatsApp chatline the government in South Africa put together and this was later repurposed by the WHO. Also, things like the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center as well as recent collaborative work with Apple and Android Coronavirus exposure tracking apps. These for me, are things that matter right now.”

Rupen Desai, Global CMO at Dole:

“I loved the Go back to Africa work. Taking a divisive emotion like hate and converting this to become part of the colloquial, the culture, giving it a positive meaning and integrating this with tech and data is beyond brilliant. It takes every aspect of where marketing should be moving and delivers on some tough challenges and objectives.”

Charlotte McEleny, APAC Publisher at The Drum: 

“I loved the Sentosa Animal Crossing work by BBH in Singapore. They were so quick to do it, the timing was perfect, it really suited the concept that Sentosa as a tourism island needed to go digital and it tapped into a zeitgeist in a way that was really scaled.”

Stephan Loerke, CEO of WFA:

“The quality of the campaigns we’ve seen in our WFA Covid Compendium has been truly inspiring. A call-out to Unilever’s LifeBuoy for promoting its competitors in the fight for better sanitisation to protect against the disease.” 

Lucinda Peniston-Baines, Co-founder and Managing Partner at The Observatory International:

“Nike’s “You Can’t Stop Us” commercial was powerful on so many levels. It sensitively, yet in an uplifting way, spoke to the social tensions that have taken centre stage this year; whilst demonstrating the most extraordinary creative craft and also the power of TV, the medium that is constantly written off. I could watch it over and over (and have!).”

Atul Agrawal, Senior Vice President, Corporate Brand and Marketing at Tata Services:

“On the one hand brands have tried to communicate positivity and hope through limited communication, on the other hand some brands have either transformed to fulfil the urgent needs for hygiene products (e.g. the liquor brands making sanitiser), or have doubled down on fulfilling essential requirements. To the extent these meet genuine concerns of consumers, they are considered helpful, otherwise a brand-sell per se would not be appealing in an environment of health worries.”

Debbie Morrison, Managing Director, Global Partnerships and Events at Ebiquity:

“When it seemed like the whole world was against them on every level I really admired how Huawei has weathered so many crisis points, Covid just being one of them. They have been really impressive in how they have handled all situations but particularly in centring purpose at the heart of their activities over this period and very quietly supporting society through the crisis. You didn’t see any mass ‘Covid 19 centred Huawei marketing campaigns’, it’s not their way. They didn’t shout publicly about their activities, they just got on and did what was needed, such as free online skills training, tech solutions for remote patient care, promoting international science and tech exchange, connecting doctors across Europe, opening up Cloud and AI tech to help doctors with diagnoses and, of course, providing PPE in the millions to countries affected.” 

Sandra Martinelli, Executive President at the Association of Brazilian Advertisers:

The Brazilian bank Bradesco created a beautiful campaign during the pandemic, and it was probably the one I’ve admired the most. The film shows people in new situations, in which they had to “unlearn and relearn”. That means adapting to new places to work (at home or even in a new setting in the offices) and exercise creativity. It ends with a strong message of hope.”

Nick Broomfield, Director and Global Client Lead at Dentsu SCHEMA:

“I need more than one! Take your pick:

Burger King's ‘Mouldy Whopper’ was inspired. Risk taking but with such a strong consumer insight and simple but effective creative execution.

Pedigree ‘Bring back Love…/Happiness/Hope/Life’. Lovely campaign to support idea that dogs help lift people suffering with depression… so please adopt a dog. Cause related but not twee and well executed with powerful cartoon creatives.

IKEA ‘#StayHome’Spain. Helping people see their home from a new perspective when lockdown hit and people were isolated. Some CV-19 creative was awful and overly opportunistic but this worked really well – great brand fit.”