Judgement day: behind the scenes

This year's entries for the Thinkbox TV Planning Awards showed the media industry has lost none of its appetite for innovative TV-based campaigns, with both the standard and volume of submissions higher than last year.

The planning awards, held by TV marketing body Thinkbox to "recognise and celebrate inspired uses of TV", included the new category of Best use of TV for response, added to recognise how TV can be used for tactical objectives.

The record number of submissions was narrowed down to 18 papers across six categories by Thinkbox and Media Week, and passed to the client, agency and media owner judging panel to be assessed on their objectives, media plan, results and client involvement.

Barclays' Sara Bennison said the campaigns that shone out were those that used TV as an "action medium" and Tess Alps, chief executive of Thinkbox, felt the best papers were those that did not overclaim, demonstrated closeness to the client's business and deployed innovation and originality to deliver a better business result.

Evidence of collaboration and integration was also important - the judges were looking for proof that strategic planners and buyers had collaborated on both the execution of the campaign and the entry, and that integration showed how the media channels worked as a "team" and did not just "wear the same T-shirt".

However, although they appreciated the commercial sensitivities involved, the judging panel felt some of the papers could have been stronger when describing the campaigns' overall objectives, because few mentioned their budgets or return on investment.

Alps said: "There were too many papers where the results didn't relate to the objectives. Some people still clearly believe media results are the only thing that matter, although the judges missed them when they were missed out totally. The judging panel appreciated knowing approximate budgets when they were included; it helped put the campaigns' achievements into perspective."

Debate was often lively and there were robust exchanges between the panel as they argued the finer points of the entrants' TV planning strategies.

Here, we present a behind-the-scenes look at the judging process, celebrating all the shortlisted entries and providing an insight into why the winning campaigns emerged as the worthy recipients of this year's Thinkbox TV Planning Awards.

Best use of TV in an integrated campaign

Entries in the Best use of TV in an integrated campaign category had to feature the use of broadcast TV alongside any number of other media and the submissions were judged on how well the different elements worked together.

The first entry to be discussed was OMD UK's "Creating conversation" campaign for McDonald's. Jonathan Fowles felt OMD "planned the TV brilliantly" and using in-store media was a smart strategy. In addition, he felt the link between the two channels was strong, and the media played off each other effectively.

The other OMD entry in the category, for the Citroën C5, was also considered a strong campaign - MPG's Marie Oldham praised the strategy's "amazing audience understanding".

Meanwhile, Bennison felt Mindshare's entry for Flora was a "smart case study" that communicated well to a tough audience. "The target audience was spot-on and it was a neat, well-thought-through strategy," she said.

But the winner was PHD's campaign for the British Heart Foundation, which created the Yoobot - an online application that allowed children to experiment with their future health on virtual versions of themselves.

The judges praised the "remarkable" results using only a small budget, the solid understanding of how TV and online worked together, and the genuine integration between media, because one part could not have existed without the other.

Arena BLM's Charlie Makin, who reported that his children and their friends were "obsessed" with the Yoobot, said: "This campaign created a property that worked - I can see this campaign being influential on how TV should be used in the future."

Best ongoing use of TV

The ongoing use of TV category was closely fought between four strong entries. Vizeum UK won praise for its "consistent" Christmas campaigns and its understanding of TV as an emotive medium, Belfast agency Lyle Bailie's campaign for the Department of the Environment was considered "hard-hitting", and Mediaedge:cia's work for Morrisons delivered impressive business results.

Each entry had its advocates. Bennison liked the "refreshing simplicity" of Lyle Bailie's campaign to promote seatbelt-wearing in Northern Ireland, while Oldham, who travels to Northern Ireland every two weeks, testified that the ad is "talked-about TV". She added: "People call you into a room to talk about the campaign."

In addition, Lyle Bailie's work delivered "phenomenal results", and intrigued the judges with its claim of reaching viewers "at the point of danger" - by buying spots around emotionally engaging TV shows, for example.

However, the category winner was Mediaedge:cia, which boosted Morrisons' sales through a long-running, TV-centred strategy. Tess Alps said: "The paper fully explained TV's role, both quantitatively, by delivering instant and mass reach, and qualitatively, by adding emotional dimensions of freshness and quality to the brand.

"It was an integrated plan, yet MEC was also able to isolate the contribution of each medium through econometrics, showing that TV delivered the best return on investment in terms of both volume and efficiency."

Best newcomer to TV

There were just two shortlisted campaigns in the Best newcomer to TV category, for new brands or brands that had not used broadcast TV since January 2003 until doing so in 2008.

MediaCom joined forces with MTV to promote NatWest's Adapt account - a current account exclusively for 11 to 18-year-olds - and the judges praised the enterprising partnership. Jonathan Fowles said: "The solution was creative and the integration between the two brands was strong."

However, OMD UK's campaign for the Royal Mail's Smilers product - stamps that can be personalised with pictures of friends and family - emerged as the winner, largely because of its impressive results on a budget of just £250,000. Alps said: "Royal Mail exceeded its target for the year in one short burst before Christmas."

Best use of sponsorship or content

There is a now a range of ways that advertisers can integrate their brands into TV content - including sponsorship, branded content, PR and televised-branded events - and entrants to the Best use of sponsorship or content category had to tell the judges how they made today's colourful solutions work for them.

MediaCom, which had just £35,000 to promote GlaxoSmithKline's Breathe Right product, "made an everyday product interesting", according to Unilever's Rachel Bristow, thanks to its partnership with GMTV to run a week-long sponsorship of Sleep Week, which created the biggest sales uplift in Breathe Right's history.

Another impressive entry was Mindshare's "beautifully written" entry for Nescafé Dolce Gusto, which the judges felt was a bold solution for a brand that had not done much TV advertising. Bristow said: "This felt like a nice simple way of making the coffee machine go to the top of the category in a short space of time. You can't argue with the brand becoming the market leader."

Meanwhile, MEC chose Channel 4 presenter and spectacle wearer Gok Wan as the face of Specsavers' sponsorship of C4 shows such as How to Look Good Naked and Gok's Fashion Fix.

Oldham said: "This strategy was perfect for adding fashion to a value proposition," while Bristow commented: "This was a very good partnership - Gok Wan was the right personality to run across C4, E4 and More4."

Speaking about both the Specsavers and Nescafé campaigns, BBH's Kevin Brown added: "The campaigns showed the ability to be attuned to the market, move fast and achieve a great result."

But the winner was Carat's "Green up your life" campaign for British Gas, which promoted environmental awareness to schoolchildren through the Generation Green programme, which created ad-funded TV shows on CITV and an online game.

GMTV's Ian Williams said: "This entry told the whole story and ticks a lot of boxes through the partnership with Endemol and CITV." And Makin added: "If programming budgets for children's TV are under threat, then this is the right kind of thing to be doing."

Best use of TV innovation

The winner in the innovation category, where entrants had to demonstrate how clever use of technology is liberating TV, was MediaCom, which used revolutionary IPTV technology to deliver micro-targeted campaigns to students.

MediaCom claimed the campaign was a "global media first" and "a TV marketer's dream come true" - and the judges agreed, praising the extremely high level of targeting and real insight into how students behave.

Makin said: "MediaCom's strategy is the first addressable advertising campaign - this was a very strong paper. It had a tiny budget of less than £50,000, but demonstrated a strategically accurate use of TV. The work broke a lot of the rules about how TV should be used and where TV advertising should go in the future."

Williams added: "The entry shows fantastic learnings when Project Canvas is six to seven months away. The campaign was very brave indeed."

However, Feather Brooksbank's campaign for Bet365 was highly commended, with Makin describing the work as "a good case study that was strategically right for the client". The Red Brick Road's David Hackworthy added: "This campaign demonstrated targeted, smart advertising in a sector that has run a lot of bland brand campaigns."

Best use of TV for response

The aim of the Best use of TV for response category was to show how TV can be used to powerful effect for short-term and tactical objectives.

The judges felt MediaCom's campaign for T-Mobile made the role of the media agency very clear, and Zed Media's "What can I expect?" strategy for World Vision delivered strong results in an emotive category.

However, the winner was Universal McCann's "Creating sustainable business advantage" campaign for Autoglass, which delivered such strong results that the windscreen repair business decided to restructure its growth plans and infrastructure around TV response advertising.

Bennison said: "Direct response TV is a great medium to use and it is very 'of the moment'. I found this campaign quite inspiring."

The judges' positive response to the Autoglass campaign propelled it into the judging day's top three campaigns, which fought it out for the overall Grand Prix.

The final three - Autoglass, PHD's Yoobot campaign and MEC's work for Morrisons - all "stood head and shoulders above the rest", according to Alps, but MEC scooped this year's big prize thanks to its successful use of TV advertising to boost the retailer's market share.

Alps said: "Morrisons was a near-perfect entry, demonstrating how a change in the positioning of the company, reflected in the media plan, reversed the supermarket's market share decline, leading to increased market share and profits. It showed great media thinking, but was also a great story well told."