Congrats to OMD for scooping the coveted ‘Agency Network of the Year’ title at the Festival of Media LatAm Awards 2015. But it didn’t stop there for the Omnicom-owned agency, as the OMD Guatemala office also picked up the ‘Agency of the Year’ gong following its success with three different campaigns, including Magic Lens for Santa Lucia Lottery, March of Toys for Kasperle and Shiny Lessons for Zapaterías Coban.

‘Campaign of the Year’ was awarded to SAB Miller and Arena Media / Havas Sports & Entertainment for ‘Entre Panas’ (pictured above) – a humorous web series from Poker Beer highlighting the variety of friendship scenarios in Colombia. The campaign proved popular with the judges, having been shortlisted in four different categories and going on to pick up the Gold Award for ‘Best Entertainment Platform’ and Silver in the ‘Best Content Creation Award’ category.

‘Media Owner of the Year’ was presented to Discovery Communications because of what the judges called “brilliant work” in two campaigns for Carolina Herrera and Kellogg’s. Clear Channel was highly commended in this category for its live, smart billboard activation for Samsung Gear S.

The Rugby World Cup and O2 have chosen a softer, more positive, more inclusive and more youthful image for the advertising campaign to accompany its sponsorship of the English Rugby team. In prior years, the image was tough and gritty and targeted to the core "laddish" culture of rugby. The new advert is aiming to make the Rugby World Cup and the advert attractive to all young people including women and children.

The advert was the product of Blinkink, a company who also did the very successful Bear and the Hare advert for John Lewis in 2013.

Make no mistake, your brand’s value now relies or will soon rely on two-way participation experiences with your customer. And it’s not just Generation X or Generation Y. The rise of digital media, followed by increasing smartphone and tablet ownership has resulted in a highly fragmented communications landscape, making it more and more difficult to engage with all generations through traditional marketing techniques.

What’s more, people have become increasingly marketing savvy and with the help of digital filters are adept at filtering out messages that don’t interest them. In some countries nearly one quarter has adblocking software installed, 1 in 5 in the UK. Bombarded by thousands of marketing messages by businesses and brands offering similar products and services, it’s not only tough to reach your target audience, but also to make an impact when you do.

Consequently, marketers are always looking for a platform that allows them to communicate their brand benefits to an engaged audience willing to listen. They want more personal conversations with hot leads and more participation from customers to help develop products and services that people actually want.

It’s no surprise then that brands are turning to experiential marketing to satisfy this need. Once seen as the poor relation in the marketing mix, it is increasingly becoming a key part of marketing campaigns and marketers’ new secret weapon by not only immersing people in a brand through interaction and participation, but also being highly shareable across digital media.

We’ve seen some great innovations in outdoor advertising in our time but this one takes the biscuit – almost, literally! This week Nakd’s latest sampling drive saw a billboard erected in an area of London – but there was a twist… It was edible!

The billboard’s message to ‘Find Your Fave’ was created and built from a range of fruit and nut bars, from which consumers could stop and pick their favourite, all part of an effort to get people to try the brand’s range of goodies.

It’s all part of an integrated marketing campaign spanning press, experiential, digital display, outdoor, PR and social media. The campaign was created by independent shop Total Media, and included elements by YOLK Creative London, psLIVE and MEC.

Lie-flat business class seats. First class compartments with en-suite showers. Gourmet meals. Bottomless champagne. Most airlines know that business travelers are essential to their bottom line. Therefore, most brands make smart investments in cabin comfort in order to stay competitive. But is it smarter to also reach out to a wider section of customers, even those who rarely (if ever) pay for a seat? Since airlines usually operate under thin profit margins, marketing teams must think creatively. Appealing to the culture of a particular customer through savvy social media engagement is one way to promote a brand.

Take Air France as an example. In a whimsical campaign earlier this summer, Air France reached out to its youngest flyers so they could help the airline promote a new partnership. The French flag carrier asked kids to draw pictures on a theme devised to celebrate the release of Mark Osborne’s film The Little Prince—a story based on the 1943 novella of the same name by the famous French writer and aviator Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.

The theme titled, “draw me The Little Prince and an airplane,” let children submit their artwork to Air France in exchange for the chance to win prizes. The airline then promoted its new cadre of young artists by posting their artwork in response to customer questions on the Air France Twitter account.

What does ‘view’ mean? Sounds like a simple question, but if you’re a media buyer looking at the multiplicity of different emerging online advertising formats, particularly within the video space, getting to the bottom of this presents a massive challenge.

The fact is, one media owner’s interpretation of ‘View’ can be completely different to another’s, highlighted by the emergence and growth of “Completed Views”.

But even here you have a range of definitions. Some platforms charge advertisers for videos when only 75% of the content has been watched – does that really justify using the word “completed”? After all, you wouldn’t call a crossword complete if you’ve left 25% of the answers blank, would you?

The root of the problem is the lack of industry standardisation in measurement when it comes to the latest online advertising formats, in particular video-related ones.

The constant development of new technologies and online tools drives innovation and the introduction of new ad formats, which means more pricing options and more complexity for media buyers and brand marketers. Arguably, what they really need is standardised metrics that allow them consistency in working out what they are getting for their money from different sites and types of ads or content, so they can plan their campaigns properly.

The top gong at this year’s M&M Global Awards 2015 was last night awarded to *drum roll please* MediaCom. The WPP agency scooped the top prize as a result of six winning and two highly commended campaigns, for brands including Dell, Bose, Shell and Whisper Ultra.

‘Campaign of the Year’ was awarded to OMD and OPSM for ‘Penny the Pirate’. The initiative to help parents in Australia and New Zealand to screen their child’s vision also picked up the awards for ‘Best Engagement Strategy’ and ‘Best Entertainment Platform’.  

Other Grand Prix winners from the night were:

International Advertiser of the Year: Shell
International Media Brand of the Year: Facebook
Programmatic Company of the Year: MediaMath

See below for the full list of winners and highly commended campaigns.

Constantly thinking up smart ways to try to convince people your product is great is exhausting for brands, agencies… and consumers. But there is another way, says Alex Smith, Planning Director at real world marketing agency Sense.

Hard to believe sometimes, but advertising is actually a service.

That sounds hopelessly quaint doesn’t it? In between agencies’ fantasies of working in the entertainment industry, and brands’ desire for ever higher profits, we sometimes forget the silent partner at the table – the humble consumer. 

For them, advertising is not where they turn for whimsy and ‘engagement’ (believe it or not, there’s actually a whole media industry out there devoted to just that, and which doesn’t have to flog products while they do so), and they also couldn’t give a hoot how healthy ‘x’ company’s bank balance is. Their needs are more simple: “Inform me of the things out there that will enrich my life.” 

Creating ‘service’ ads the achieve this – ads that people find useful – is quite tricky to deliver, however, for the simple reason that by definition they require a product that people actually need or want.

Take for example a concert or festival poster: