Mindshare wins the agency of the year in mobile
The Mobile Marketing Association Forum (MMAF) Delhi 2016 and SMARTIES™ India 2016 awards held at The Leela Ambience Gurgaon Hotel and Residences in Gurgaon, India were a resounding success. Dissecting the elements of mobile marketing, this year’s sessions at the MMA India Forum titled Winning Businesses with Mobile highlighted mobile best practices while demystifying current topics, and delivering real in market case studies from brands that are doing it well. A must attend event for any marketer the forum had an amazing line up of speakers to help marketers build their own capabilities and the capabilities of their brand.
Eminent speakers spoke at the MMA Forum, covering the trends of the mobile reach and marketing scenario. Mr Shivakumar, Chairman and CEO, PepsiCo India highlighted the challenges of servicing a billion “mobile users” in India, and expressed how this revolution is affecting the finance industry, pegging the decline of credit card industry. Speaking on mobile ROI, Amrit Thomas, CMO, United Spirit Limited opined that if a brand can attribute ROI to partners by providing data insights, it enhances the overall consumer experience. But all this boils down to the consumer, said the research expert, Hemant Mehta, Senior VP, IMRB. He shared a first look of recent findings about consumer behaviour on feature phones revealing that feature phone users have higher ARPU (Average revenue per user). Ajit Mohan, CEO, Hotstar spoke about quality storytelling on the mobile screen, to engage audience. He also asked the hard-hitting question “Is the trade-off for precision quality?” denouncing the fundamentally accepted norm that precision and quality cannot go together. CVL Srinivas, CEO, GroupM, presented the key note from an agency perspective, speaking about how marketers are still looking for proof to invest in digital, when the proof points are behind them in time.
The Mobile Marketing Association Forum (MMAF) Delhi 2016, came to a close with the announcement of the SMARTIES™ India 2016 awards. Gold, Silver, and Bronze metals were announced in 16 categories ranging from Brand Awareness to Cross Media Integration amidst a fun-filled evening hosted by Comedian, Host and Writer Sapan Verma. In addition to the category awards, the SMARTIES™ India 2016 also announced the Blue industry awards that included Agency of the Year in Mobile, Marketer of the Year in Mobile and Best in show titles.
Mindshare and Performics were the big winners for the night. Mindshare led the race with 5 Golds winning the Agency of the Year in Mobile Award while Hindustan Unilever Limited was chosen as the Marketer of the Year in Mobile. The other winners for the night included Indigo Consulting & Leo Burnett in Brand awareness and the Best in Show award was won by Mindshare for their ‘MMS 2.0’ campaign.
The SMARTIES™ is the world’s only global mobile marketing awards program that honours innovation, creativity and success in the field of mobile marketing. This year an ‘all-Brand Jury’, led by Jury Chairperson Shireesh Joshi, Head Strategic Marketing, Godrej Group, and consisting of other celebrated marketers in India, evaluated the campaigns to shortlist those that showcased the ‘best of the best’ in the industry. Covering everything from brand awareness to innovation, video/rich media and social media, the awards celebrated the excellent work being done on mobile by both brands and agencies.
Mobile as a media channel offers truly exciting opportunities for consumer engagement. In order to better equip marketers to make mobile work for their brands it is important to understand how to use mobile as a vehicle to deliver a holistic brand experience. For this purpose, the MMA in collaboration with Millward Brown Smarties Knowledge Partner analysed all the entries for the SMARTIES Awards in India to present an insights presentation, to unearth best practices, key mobile trends and establish what sets apart a winning mobile campaign.
“I’d like to congratulate all the award winners. I think I speak not only for myself but also on behalf of the Jury when I say that we were really impressed with the entries this year. Innovation is what drives the mobile marketing industry. I look forward to more innovations and participation in the future.” said MMA India Jury Chairperson Shireesh Joshi, Head Strategic Marketing, Godrej Group.
Expressing his delight,Prasanth Kumar, CEO, South Asia, Mindshare said “It is a great honour to be conferred with ‘Agency of the Year in Mobile’ this year at the SMARTIES. It has been a team effort, with everyone pushing towards the same goal of performing better each time. Every accolade motivates us to increase our effort and delivery at the same time strengthening team spirit while our clients and partners inspire us to be more innovative and adaptive in our thought process. Our clients and partners are the aspirational force behind all of our performance.” He added, “We are also delighted that HUL won Marketer of the Year in Mobile’ the synergy between client and agency is evident across all the metals we won at the Smarties 2016.
Speaking on the occasion, Shaveta Bhardwaj, Managing Director(West), Kantar Millward Brown said, “Marketers are showcasing good increment in their implementation of ‘mobile’ as a unique communication medium. Comparatively, this year we saw marketers leverage the strength of mobile more innovatively. We also saw mobile become more integrated into the campaign strategy, serving as an important component and not just an additional tag-on.”
“I would like to thank the industry for their overwhelming support and participation at this year’s MMA Forum and Smarties. We have strived to find the best campaigns from across the country and I think that our esteemed Jury has been successful at culling out the best in class campaigns in each category. I hope that the great work that’s happening across India continues in the years to come.” said Preeti Desai Country Manager, Mobile Marketing Association India.