AFFINITY wins prestigious President’s Prize at 2018 IPA Effectiveness Awards

AFFINITY was awarded the prestigious President’s Prize for Best Use of Tech-Led Data at the 2018 IPA Effectiveness Awards for their ground-breaking cough predictor. Developed for natural cough remedy Prospan, their revolutionary algorithm allowed them to target consumers at the moment their child was at most risk of developing a cough, and increased sales by 27% despite having a budget of less than 1% of the overall market spend in Australia.

AFFINITY wins prestigious President’s Prize at 2018 IPA Effectiveness Awards

After identifying that most Australian mums were inclined to ignore the early signs of a cough as they tend to ‘sort themselves out’, AFFINITY used social, Medicare, temperature and pollution data to pinpoint the conditions most likely to cause a cough. This allowed AFFINITY to target the mums most likely to take action, and caused Prospan’s market share against its larger competitors to increase by 18.5% in just six months. This impressive growth came despite a significant drop in the overall market during one of Australia’s warmest winters on record.

The President’s Prize was created by IPA President Sarah Golding to celebrate the demonstration of technology-led data in the generation of strategy, delivery, execution, optimization or measurement of effect.

Says Sarah Golding, IPA President and CEO and Partner of The&Partnership: “Technology and data are enabling us to develop highly creative and effective brand-building tools that can truly transform our industry. This case study is a fantastic example of how to use AI, data and insight to dynamically target the consumer, and I’m delighted that it has won this year’s President’s Prize.”

Says Neil Godber, Convenor of Judges and Head of Planning, J. Walter Thompson London: “AFFINITY used insight, creativity and big data to fascinating effect in very challenging conditions. Not only were they up against big budget competitors and apathetic attitudes towards coughs, but also the weather as well. With everything considered it is remarkable that they have caused such a dramatic shift in Propsan’s market share in such a short space of time.”

The 2018 IPA Effectiveness Awards are the world’s most rigorous and prestigious Awards scheme with entrants having to prove the payback of their communications activity. In total nine gold, 18 silver and 11 bronze prizes, along with 10 special prizes, were awarded to companies from six countries.

Australian agencies also won three other prizes at the Awards, with whiteGrey picking up a silver for their work with the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust, and Ogilvy Australia claiming two bronzes for their Soothers and U by Kotex campaigns.

Full list of 2018 IPA Effectiveness Awards Winners:

Special Prizes:

Grand Prix – sponsored by Thinkbox:

Audi UK by BBH - Beauty and brains: How we supercharged the Audi premium 2015-2018

Effectiveness Network of the Year

McCann

Effectiveness Company of the Year

The Simon Broadbent Prize for Best Dedication to Effectiveness – sponsored by Newsworks

Diageo

The President’s Prize for Best Use of Tech Led Data – sponsored by Google

Prospan (Flordis Australia) by AFFINITY - The world's first cough predictor

The Channon Prize for Best New Learning – sponsored by Radiocentre

Direct Line Group by Direct Line Group and Ebiquity - They went short. We went long

The Tim Broadbent Prize for Best International – sponsored by WARC

Heineken by Publicis Italy - A Game Changer: How Heineken reinvented its champions league communications

Best Multi-Market – sponsored by System 1

Heineken by Publicis Italy - A Game Changer: How Heineken reinvented its champions league communications

Best Small Budget – sponsored by DBS Data

Ella's Kitchen by Havas London - Selling up doesn’t mean selling out

The #IPASocialWorks Prize for Best Use of Social Media – sponsored by Facebook

True Match (L’Oréal Paris) by McCann London - How L'Oréal Paris UK True Match climbed to No.1 by making everyone feel ‘Worth It’

Gold winners:

Silver winners:

Bronze winners:

The 2018 Effectiveness Awards are sponsored by DBS Data, Facebook, Google, Marsh, Newsworks, Radiocentre, System1, Thinkbox and Warc.

Full details about the winning campaigns and additional effectiveness content, including what the judges thought, can be found on the IPA website or WARC.