Marketing Society Awards for Excellence

Summary
Waitrose is the food retailing arm of the John Lewis Partnership, one of the UK's most successful and trusted companies. But the recession which began in 2009 presented a big challenge for the retailer because its brand was so closely associated with quality food and a strong ethical stance. The risk was that its stores would become an infrequent 'nice to do' visit rather than a vital 'need to do' because consumers were tightening their belts. However, a new brand – essential Waitrose – found exactly the right tone for an upmarket supermarket's first value-led proposition. In spite of concern that a 'value' range from Waitrose would undermine its premium credentials, a bold marketing initiative, a strong product offering and a stylish brand identity delivered the most impressive results in Waitrose's history. By the end of 2009 the 'essential' brand accounted for 16% of total sales, with sales of individual products running on average 17% ahead of previous levels. And, at a time when total grocery market growth was slowing, the launch spurred the business as a whole into growth.

Summary
The Harlequin Football Club was founded in 1866 (although the first recorded game was not until 1867) as Hampstead Football Club and renamed in 1870. The club has won the Rugby Football Union Club knockout competition on two occasions: The John Player Cup in 1988 and Pilkington Cup in 1991. It was also the first British side to win the European Shield in 2001, going on to win the renamed Parker Pen Challenge Cup again in 2004. Rugby clubs are not known for big marketing budgets or indeed big brand thinking when it comes to marketing. The Big Game 2 was an attempt to fill Twickenham Stadium with 82,000 people for Harlequins vs. Wasps on December 27th 2009. That was a 600% increase on Harlequins' normal match-day attendance. With just £120,000 to spend during a six month build-up, the club had to be creative to reach out to a non-traditional rugby audience by offering a branded package devised by Bamboo Marketing Communications that offered great entertainment, even better value and, hopefully, a first-class game of rugby. The result broke records for a standard club fixture and became a regular spot in the annual events calendar.

Summary
British Gas, part of the Centrica Group, provides gas, electricity and home repair services to millions of customers in Scotland, Wales and England. In 1986 the company received the accolade of the 'Brand of Britain' by The Marketing Society. In the years that followed, however, its reputation fell. The erosion of key brand health measures was accompanied by a declining customer base. There was widespread acknowledgement that the company had had its eyes fixed more on the competition that its customers. In 2008 British Gas set out on a 'journey back to great', beginning with a wholesale re-evaluation of its approach to marketing and putting the customer at the heart of this brand revitalisation. A new organising thought was developed based on the insight: 'Your home is your world. Count on British Gas to look after it'. A number of initiatives, including becoming the principal partner of British swimming and environmental programmes, were developed as part of this revitalisation. Not only did this lead to the proportion of customers claiming British Gas as their first choice of energy supplier rising to an all-time high, but 2009 saw the first substantial growth in customer numbers in seven years.

Summary
ICI Paints, which was acquired by AkzoNobel, one of the world's leading industrial companies, in 2008, had for some time run as a multi-local organisation with a complex brand portfolio of over 40 brands. Although it had scale and a powerful global footprint, it was struggling to turn this into a competitive advantage, In 2007, inspired by a universal insight into the 'regenerative power of colour', ICI Paints identified the opportunity to drive growth by building a powerful global brand - Dulux. Over a three-year period the marketing team worked in new crossborder and cross-cultural ways to get the brand to travel successfully, including developing a common marketing language. The result was the creation of a global innovation strategy for the brand centred around five common platforms and the development of the company's first global communications campaign. The business derived significant financial benefit from this new global approach, with brand share rising in most major markets.

Summary
Audi has manufactured cars since 1909 in Ingolstadt, Germany and is the major premium brand within the Volkswagen (VW) Group. In the UK, Audi has now become firmly established as a leading force within the prestige car sector, famed for its engineering and admired for its commercial success. Marketing has played an instrumental role in Audi's inexorable rise from being a niche brand to challenging for the lead in the prestige car sector. It is proof that consistent needn't mean conservative, and that creative can also mean effective. For 25 years, Audi's distinctive approach has continued to challenge the boundaries of convention in marketing and the car industry alike. It has become synonymous with one of the most memorable straplines in advertising: Vorsprung durch Technik.

Summary
GlaxoSmithKline Consumer Healthcare UK is part of GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), with headquarters in the UK and an estimated seven per cent of the world's pharmaceutical market. GSK's Consumer Healthcare UK is the UK's leading over the counter (OTC) company and home to a wide range of household brands. In 2009 the company launched a new weight loss brand into the UK marketplace. alli was the first OTC medicine to be granted a single licence for sale across Europe as well as being the first non-prescription weight loss aid to receive a European licence. The UK launch was one of the company's most ambitious marketing campaigns ever, with a simultaneous pan European launch across 27 countries. The fully integrated, cross channel campaign was based on in depth consumer research and liaison with key experts. In the UK within only a few months the weight loss brand had 56% prompted consumer awareness and strong sales, making it the leading weight loss capsule on the market.

Summary
Walkers is the UK's favourite crisps brand and Britain's largest crisp manufacturer, with 16 ranges of crisps and snacks including Walkers Sensations, Doritos and Quavers. It was bought by PepsiCo in 1989. In 2008/09, Walkers tore up its rule book and launched a radical new campaign to breathe new life into the way the company developed and talked about its flavours by inviting consumers to come up with new flavours. It was a risk, it was a headache, and it was a spectacular success. The business had truly never seen anything like 'Do us a flavour'. Over the campaign period, the 'Do us a flavour' idea outperformed category year-on-year sales growth by 68%. Walkers also achieved its highest value market share for three years. It attracted a deep level of consumer interaction with the brand, with over a million flavour suggestions. Even more significantly, it showed how a marketing idea could affect every aspect of the business.

Summary
Aviva is the world's fifth-largest insurance group and the largest insurance services provider in the UK. Its main activities are long-term savings, fund management and general insurance. The brand has existed since 2002 following research conducted by CGNU (itself the result of the merger in 2000 of CGU and Norwich Union) which showed that none of the existing legacy brands had the potential to grow into a single brand that could be used globally. However, it did not extend the Aviva brand to its existing market leading businesses: Norwich Union in the UK, Hibernian in Ireland and Commercial Union in Poland. This changed with the arrival in 2007 of a new chief executive who spearheaded a strategy that would be built on the effective leverage of a single global brand. In 2008 the company took the brave decision to become Aviva everywhere. While it was aware of the huge challenges, it was imperative in order to deliver its new company vision of 'One Aviva, twice the value'. The brand migration project was incredibly complex. Despite the many different strands to be woven together it was successfully delivered on time and under budget. In the UK, a fully integrated marketing communications campaign managed the tricky transition from Norwich Union to Aviva.

Summary
Thinkbox is the marketing body for commercial TV in the UK in all its forms. Its shareholders are Channel 4, Five, GMTV, ITV, Sky Media and Turner Media Innovations. They together represent over 90% of commercial TV advertising revenue through their owned and partner TV channels. When it was launched in February 2005, it had three main objectives: to produce a fundamental re-evaluation of television as a commercial medium; To achieve recognition that TV advertising is vital and has a strong future; and to protect TV revenue. By the end of 2006 aggressive targeting of the TV budget by 'rival' media in combination with no unified voice for TV had led to progressive decline in its share of display advertising to an all time low of 39.7% (22% of total advertising). Stories of 'the death of TV' were rife and a piece of quantitative tracking research revealed that it was held in low esteem by large sections of the industry. During a three-year programme of communications and research focused around the four broad strategic pillars of: EffecTVness, Leadership, Education and Inspiration, Thinkbox, in partnership with the TV companies, not only transformed industry perceptions of TV as a medium but grew TV's share of revenue.

Summary
Virgin Atlantic is one of the UK's major airlines, owned 51% by Richard Branson's Virgin Group and 49% by Singapore Airlines. In 2009 Virgin Atlantic celebrated its 25th anniversary with the multi-award winning Still Red Hot campaign. In an industry struggling to ride out a worldwide global recession, this campaign was dubbed by Richard Branson the best Virgin Atlantic ad ever made. From a marketing perspective, it marked an important milestone for the brand, not only celebrating 25 years in the business, but almost two decades of consistently disruptive communications. The consistency in Virgin Atlantic communications has come through the cultivation of an inimitable brand voice and iconic visual identity. It is this that has acted as the golden thread uniting communications. This approach has kept the brand in the public consciousness, imbued it with 'Virginness' and helped raise it to its status today as one of the UK's favourite airlines.