LONDON: FP7/DXB, a UAE agency that is part of McCann Worldgroup, has picked up two Special Awards in the inaugural Warc Prize for Connection Strategy.

The Commercial Impact Award for the best example of a connection strategy with a direct influence on retail or e-commerce performance went to a campaign it developed for Fanta.

With Creating more play in MENA, it reinvented the soft drink's strategy in the region with a distinctive teen engagement platform based on gaming.

Fanta Masters has become the largest and the most active brand platform for play for teens in the Middle East while at the same time generating partnership value. Sales volumes and brand metrics have risen in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

"We're very happy for our work to be recognized by Warc as a best case example in Connections Strategy," said Tahaab Rais, regional head of strategic planning for FP7/MENA. "Being judged and awarded by an esteemed panel of leaders in connections planning and to win out of the best cases in the world is an exciting achievement."

The agency was also behind the winner of the Context Award for the best example of a real-time or contextual connection strategy. Project Akshar (Alphabets) was set up by SmartLife, an NGO, to help Dubai's labourers learn English and so improve their status and quality of life.

It was "planned and designed to be a fairly low-tech effort, demonstrating the power of a simple strategy," explained Rais.

"We wanted to reach labourers in a format and across connection points they'd be comfortable and familiar with as that was the key to being effective. Simple touches, like offering a missed call to enrol in the service, conveyed that we understood the lives of the people that we were trying to reach. Creating a participatory element through social media was also a planned move as part of our connections strategy."

Finally, the Low-Budget Award for the best example of a connection strategy developed on a budget below $1m went to Bonnington's Irish Moss, an Australian cough mixture.

Bohemia Group helped it reverse a sharp sales decline by using data to develop a flu tracker which could then target affected areas at just the moment the flu season hit.

The Grand Prix winner will be revealed tomorrow.

Data sourced from Warc