DraftFCB Media’s ‘Driving Dogs’ campaign for MINI + SPCA named digital campaign of 2012 in the Yahoo! New Zealand Digital Strategy Awards

DraftFCB Media’s ‘MINI Driving Dogs‘ has been named the winning digital campaign of 2012 in the Yahoo! New Zealand Digital Strategy Awards, beating out the ‘best of the best’ to take the top digital honour.

Judges said that the campaign, which aimed to promote MINI’s association with the SPCA and drive adoption rates, harnessed the true power of digital and succeeded in engaging a mass audience to deliver against its objectives.

Says Laura Maxwell-Hansen, Yahoo! New Zealand general manager: “This campaign took a key consumer insight and created a digital campaign that simply could not have been as successful on any other media.”

Led by DraftFCB Media’s head of digital & content, Harri Owen and digital director, Steph Pearson, ‘MINI Driving Dogs’ took a multi-layered approach and seeded rich video content across a variety of paid, owned and earned online media platforms in order to dramatically extend the reach of the campaign.

The Yahoo! Digital Strategy Awards are run quarterly. At the end of each year, quarterly winners then square off against each other to go for the title of overall winner. This year, SparkPHDiQ was named runner-up for their sLIPTONslide campaign on behalf of Lipton Ice Tea.

Says Maxwell-Hansen: “The standard of digital advertising in New Zealand continues to go from strength to strength and the calibre of entries into the Yahoo! Digital Strategy Awards over the course of 2012 is testament to this.”

Helen Baxter, managing directrix of Mohawk Media said she was also impressed with the overall standard of entries in the Awards.

Says Baxter: “New Zealand agencies are becoming increasingly sophisticated in their approach to digital media and DraftFCB Media demonstrated this with the ‘MINI Driving Dogs’ campaign. Digital is a medium that continues to evolve and I am excited to see how agencies and brands will recognise its potential over the coming year.

“An honourable mention must also go to runner-up sLIPTONslide, where phdiq produced a fun campaign that punched well above its spending weight, getting great results in a crowded drinks market during poor summer weather.”

As overall winners, DraftFCB Media receive $10,000 of media space on Yahoo! New Zealand and free entry into the 2013 CAANZ Media Awards Best Use of Digital category.

This judging panel included Laura Maxwell-Hansen, general manager of Yahoo! New Zealand; Helen Baxter, managing directrix of Mohawk Media; Hazel Phillips, editor of Idealog; and Emily Hare, managing editor of internationally recognised creative title, Contagious.