Effie Awards shine light on advertising industry’s resilience, creativity, humanity

Amid a period of recessionary fears and high inflation, the 2023 Australian Effie Awards pointed to the enduring power of advertising and creativity to boost business growth and drive social impact.

CHEP Network won Effective Agency of the Year. Picutred: The advertising agency’s Flipvertising campaign for Samsung

Top marketers and advertising firms gathered in Sydney last Thursday, as the winners of Advertising Council Australia’s prestigious Effie Awards to recognise the most effective campaigns were unveiled.

Inflation and recessionary fears have loomed large over the past year, but Australian marketers and advertisers have held the line and continued to deploy creativity to find business growth across a range of sectors.

This year’s awards shone a spotlight on a resilient industry – one that continues to demonstrate business return on investment amid ever-turning economic tides.

Advertising Council Australia chairman Mark Green speaking at the 2023 Australian Effie Awards. Photo: Quilman Cruz

Advertising Council Australia chairman Mark Green told the audience, “Tonight is about the impact that we can have. And we can have amazing impact as an industry. The work that you do, when it is right on point (and) when it’s right on message, can really change businesses and have a great impact for our clients. And that’s what tonight is about celebrating.”

The highest honour for a campaign – the Grand Effie – went to The Arnott’s Group and advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi, part of the Neighbourhood, for its “Life’s Little Moments” campaign. The Neighbourhood is a specialist collection of agency teams within Publicis Groupe’s stable, which was created for Arnott’s.

The ad campaign, which celebrated small moments of joy found in daily rituals while enjoying Arnott’s popular biscuit brands, quickly demonstrated a business impact and drove sales across its portfolio.

Within the first six months after the campaign was launched in 2022, Arnott’s market share position in the biscuit category grew by one percentage point, and delivered biscuit volume growth of 2 per cent, Arnott’s chief marketing officer Jenni Dill recently told The Growth Agenda.

“The creativity of Arnott’s ‘Life’s Little Moments’ campaign connects emotionally and has driven powerful business results,” Ms Dill said.

“Creativity becomes even more important in a challenging climate. Ultimately, creativity and this campaign have helped to reinvigorate an iconic Australian brand. We respected Arnott’s 158-year legacy but also extended and modernised appeal by reaching more people, more of the time, with more of our product portfolio.”

Ms Dill told The Growth Agenda that while consumers continued to feel the pinch of the rising cost of living, the brand “remains cautiously optimistic about the year ahead”.

“We will continue to invest in our much loved brands, with particular focus on Arnott’s, Tim Tam and Shapes, while also making significant investments in new capabilities to step up our product innovation agenda.”

Michael Rebelo, Advertising Council Australia deputy chairman and chief executive of Publicis Groupe ANZ, said “The creative had nostalgia, intergenerational bonding, diversity of moments and people, plus a lightness of touch in the storytelling.

“In the face of global supply chain storms, forced price rises and a cost of living crisis, Arnott’s affectionate take on how a simple biscuit can help to connect Aussies effectively increased their appetite for these household brands; driving salience at the shelf.”

M&C Saatchi’s campaign for Big W was recognised with a gold Effie for its long-term business effects. The judges said: “The campaign has proven to be a big platform that stretches across multiple retail occasions and with continued investment has delivered a solid discount retail ROI.”

The Colin Wilson-Brown Chairman’s Award, a new honour at this year’s Effies, was awarded to The Monkeys, part of Accenture Song, for its project for the government of Tuvalu. The much-adored advertising industry veteran Mr Wilson-Brown called it “a campaign of our time”. The project featured a digital replica of a part of Tuvalu, a Pacific island country whose landmass is under threat due to global warming and rising sea levels. The work was called Tuvalu: The First Digital Nation, and featured the country’s Justice, Communication and Foreign Affairs Minister Simon Kofe delivering his 2021 speech to the UN Climate Change Conference.

The video communicates that even though Tuvalu’s physical future is uncertain, the country can live on in perpetuity through technology – a bleak but potentially necessary proposition that prompted audiences to consider cultural, historic, social and economic loss that would result without land.

KFC Australia was named The Effie effective advertiser of the year, which came via Ogilvy and was recognised for advertising effects over a three-year period.

A campaign for Tourism Tasmania’s “Off Season” was recognised with a gold Effie and came from advertising agency BMF. The campaign forms part of Tourism Tasmania’s three year-old “Come Down For Air” platform, which has contributed to the local economy post-Covid, including increasing local visitor spend and visitor numbers in recent years.

Advertising agency CHEP Network took home the title of effective agency of the year, encompassing nine Effies for its work across a collection of brands including Samsung, fundraising initiative Curing Homesickness and infant formula brand Nutricia.

Its campaign for Samsung’s foldable Galaxy Z Flip4 mobile device won four Effies, including a coveted gold award. The campaign, titled Flipvertising, was also awarded at Cannes earlier this year. CHEP’s chief executive Lee Leggett said both accolades pointed to how the work had performed on both creative merit and commercial effectiveness.

The campaign challenged both the perceptions and mechanics of traditional advertising. It brought thinking from the creative, technology, media and data corners of the agency’s business to create a competitive ‘internet sport’ where a Gen Z audience actively sought to get targeted by Samsung ads for the chance to win a new Galaxy Flip phone. It was a social-first campaign that subverted digital media retargeting techniques.

Ms Leggett said that the firm’s expanding capabilities to cover a growing range of customer and business touchpoints, as well as advertising campaigns, had played a key role in it being recognised for its effectiveness as an agency.

She said amid economic headwinds, creativity was more valuable than ever.

“The current climate insists clients and agencies work in partnership to deliver creative and effective work. Great agencies double down on smart and integrated strategic thinking and then deliver work that builds brands across the consumer journey.”