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.

OMD, Starcom Mediavest, MediaCom and Mindshare have attained the highest number of shortlisted entries in this year’s Festival of Media LatAm (FOMLA) Awards, with Coca-Cola, SAB Miller and Visa among the brands achieving the highest numbers of nominations.

The FOMLA Awards 2015 shortlist spans work from 15 countries across the region, including Paraguay, Puerto Rico, Ecuador, Dominican Republic and Guatemala, with a total of 110 entries having made the list.

OMD has been shortlisted 17 times, the highest number of nominations, followed by Starcom Mediavest, with 11, and MediaCom and Mindshare joint-third with eight apiece. Arena Media achieved seven nominations.

A total of 54 brands made 2015’s shortlist, up from 48 on 2014. Coca-Cola won nine places, while SAB Miller achieved six nominations and Visa five.

This year's awards sees the introduction of a number of new categories, including Best Use of Video, Best Use of Mobile, Best Use of Programmatic Technology, Best Use of Native Advertising, Smart Use of Data Award and Consumer Research Award.

In terms of standout campaigns, four have made the shortlist across four separate categories - Visa’s ‘So Far Yet So Close’, Zapaterias Coban’s ‘Shiny Lessons’, SAB Miller’s ‘Entre Panas (Among Fellas)’, and Coca-Cola’s ‘Make Someone Happy’.

Check out the full shortlist here and below.

M&M Global has kicked off a public vote to decide the winner of three M&M Global Awards 2015 Grand Prix awards. Here’s your chance to have your say on who you think deserves to be crowned International Advertiser of the Year, International Media Brand of the Year and Programmatic Company of the Year.*

Check out the categories/shortlisted companies below and CAST YOUR VOTE HERE. Also, you can click through to view some of their latest work featured on Cream.

International Advertiser of the Year is a brand that has excelled across markets, and found success through the innovative use of media and communications. The nominees are:

MediaCom and OMD have achieved the highest numbers of entries in this year’s M&M Global Awards shortlist, with the agencies almost neck-and-neck with 31 and 29 entries respectively, while Dell and Shell have emerged as the brands with the most nominations.

This year the shortlist features 116 entries spanning 18 categories.

While 69 brands made the shortlist, Dell’s ‘Take IT Easy’ case study through MediaCom stood out for garnering the most nominations for any campaign, being shortlisted six times, followed by Bose’s #listenforyourself (also MediaCom).

Starcom MediaVest Group achieved the third-highest number of entries to the awards, while newcomers include Essence, RE’FLEKT and Primus.

This year’s awards see the debut of a number of new categories: B2B Campaign of the Year, Best Partnership Award, Best Use of Mobile, Best Use of Native Advertising, Best Use of Video, International Creativity Award and The Smart Use of Data Award.

Check out the full shortlist below.

Is technology killing creativity? It’s a debate that’s been questioned for quite some time now but one thing’s for sure, if the Cannes Lions Awards 2015 winners are anything to go by, the answer has surely got to be a resounding ‘No’.

With such an exhaustive list of categories and winners, the Cream blog just won’t be able to handle of all them so we’ve chosen to round-up just the Grand Prix (where given) and Gold winners in some of our favourite categories. Of course, if you want to check out the full list of Gold, Silver and Bronze winners, head on over to the Cannes Lions website for more.

Okay, so here goes…

Cannes Lions Awards 2015 – The Winners

Media

Grand Prix
Vodafone Red Light Application / Between Us (Vodafone/Y&R Istanbul – Turkey)

With the M&M Global Awards coming up later this summer, what better way to gear up for the biggest celebration of the most innovative and effective pan-regional advertising campaigns, than by reflecting on some of the best…

Here’s our pick of the top 5 international media campaigns over the past five years:

1. McDonald’s ‘FryFutbol’

OMD emerged triumphant at this year’s Festival of Media Global Awards, picking up two of the three coveted grand prix titles, including Campaign of the Year and Agency Network of the Year.

The Omnicom agency, in tandem with M2M, picked up a remarkable four Gold prizes for its ‘Penny the Pirate’ children's eye screening work for LUXOTTICA in Australia, culminating in the Campaign of the Year award.

‘Penny the Pirate’ was awarded Gold in the Best Engagement Strategy, Best Entertainment Platform, Best Launch Campaign and Best Use of Content categories.

While OMD walked away with Agency Network of the Year, the Agency of the Year prize went to Starcom MediaVest US. It was a hugely successful evening for the Publicis Groupe agency, which amassed a total of eight trophies, including four Gold, two Silver and two Bronze.

Three of its Gold awards – Best Use of Video, The Utility/Public Service Award and Best Communications Strategy – went to its popular #Likeagirl campaign for Procter & Gamble.

Elsewhere, GroupM agency MediaCom scooped 11 awards, including three Gold, four Silver and four Bronze, while US firm iHeartMedia won Media Vendor of the Year.

After a disappointing 2014, in which its companies failed to win a single Gold, the US was the best performing market, with a total of 15 trophies, ahead of Australia in second and the UK in third. Other markets to pick up Gold awards included Canada, Germany, New Zealand, Norway and Tunisia.

Charlie Crowe, chairman and editor-in-chief at C Squared, said: “We are really trying to develop our awards categories to not only reflect the changes taking place in media but also to challenge the industry to push new boundaries. And guess what? The industry has responded!

"In nine years and across 19 Festival of Media shows since we launched, we have never seen more award entries of such high quality, as well as a 20% increase in entries overall.

“There were at least five occasions in the jury rooms where the arguments were over whether multiple gold awards should be given. We have a duty to ensure this work is shared globally, to inspire even greater heights for next year.”

Chris Carmichael, global head of media at HSBC, and one of the judges, added: “I was incredibly impressed by the high quality of entries. In some cases, there were five or six entries in each category which had the potential to win gold, leading to some heated discussions and tough decisions during the voting in order to decide the final winner.”

Check out all the winners from the Festival of Media Global Awards 2015 and read the full case studies on Cream Global:

Mindshare MENA took centre stage at the inaugural Festival of Media MENA Awards (FOM MENA) this week, walking away with both Agency Network of the Year and Campaign of the Year trophies.

The ceremony took place at the Music Hall, Jumeirah Zabeel Saray in Dubai, following a one-day conference with speakers from Facebook, Google, Aston Martin and Twitter. The conference was hosted by AOL Digital Forecaster David Shing.

Mindshare MENA’s winning Campaign of the Year, ‘Keep our Beaches Clean’, was the star campaign of the night, having also been awarded in the Best Use of Digital Media, The Creative Use of Media Award, The Effectiveness Award, and The Utility/Public Service Award categories.

Initiative UAE walked away with the final of the third grand Prix, for Agency Office of the Year along with three gold, three silver, and two bronze trophies.

Starcom MediaVest Group picked up two gold awards for its ‘Mr Monopoly Invades Dubai’ and ‘Bollywood on Wheels’ campaigns. OMD, MEC, and PHD received one gold each.

Havas Media Middle East was awarded three silver trophies for its ‘Emirates Stars of Tomorrow’ and ‘Emirates’ #AllTimeGreats’ campaigns.

Check out all the winners below: