BBH was named Effectiveness Company of the Year last night, picking up the IPA Effectiveness Awards Grand Prix, for its work in transforming Audi’s UK business and delivering the automaker’s highest ever profit ROMI, as well as three silver awards, and one bronze.

The biennial IPA Effectiveness Awards (see all the winners here) are one of the world’s most rigorous and prestigious Awards schemes with entrants having to prove the payback of their communications activity.

Over the past few years, Audi’s long-running Vorsprung durch Technik strategy has been built on using the guiding principle that Audi makes “beautiful cars with amazing brains” – an approach that has produced a string of advertising highlighting both traditional performance aspects and a stream of technical innovations.

It has also delivered impressive results:
  • Sales grew three times faster than the UK market
  • The price gap to the highest priced competitors fell by 10%
  • Lifetime customer value increased by 6%
  • An estimated £1.78bn of incremental value was generated from 2015-2017
  • Audi recorded its highest ever profit ROMI, £2.07 for every £1 invested.
“Audi has a heritage as a consistent and effective brand advertiser, and it used fresh thinking, tools and multiple media to supercharge the brand’s desirability and sales,” said Chair of Judges Dame Carolyn McCall, Chief Executive, ITV.

“This strategy resulted in Audi UK’s highest ever return on investment, an extraordinary achievement given the many years it has been advertising. It really is deserving of the industry’s ultimate accolade – a unanimous decision by the judges.”

In addition to the Grand Prix, a total of nine gold, 18 silver and 11 bronze prizes, were awarded at an event in central London last night. Ten special prizes were also awarded to companies from six countries, including the Tim Broadbent Prize for Best International, sponsored by WARC.

This went to a campaign for Heineken by Publicis Italy which reinvented the beer brand’s UEFA Champions League communications. The international brewer enlisted the celebrity of Manchester United manager, Jose Mourinho, to increase brand loyalty and demonstrate the importance of the UCL as a sporting occasion. Garnering 1.1 billion impressions, the campaign grew volume sales by 13.7% year on year. 

WARC subscribers can read the winning entries in full on WARC.com.

Sourced from IPA; additional content by WARC staff