Now in its fourth year, the Marketing Brilliance Awards celebrate the outstanding work created and executed by the marketing agencies Diageo works with across its global network.

This year’s winning work was as diverse as it was exciting, from truly engaging responsible drinking campaigns to awe inspiring voyages across the oceans. Each of these ‘gold standard’ campaigns helped Diageo connect with consumers in increasingly innovative ways, providing stimulating content across a wide variety of media channels.

brandhouse South Africa and FoxP2 initiated ‘Drive Dry’, brandhouse’s responsible drinking campaign, seven years ago. Its main objective is to take an honest approach to evoking strong emotional responses from consumers by personalising the issue of drunk driving. The 2011 campaign, Pappa Wag Vir Jou (Daddy’s waiting for you), was one of the most iconic and spoken about campaigns to come out of South Africa in recent years, with the phrase "Pappa wag vir jou" becoming a part of SA's social lexicon.

The follow up 2012 ‘Drive Dry’ campaign ‘Who’s driving you home tonight?’ was a worthy successor, also pulling no punches in delivering it’s hard hitting message on the consequences of drinking and driving. Considering the number of awards and accolades collected by the Pappa campaign, following on from that success was always going to be a challenge, but “Who’s driving you home” not only managed this but ended up exceeding the number of awards won by Pappa.

The campaign message was that South Africans would understand that drinking and driving not only places one at risk of a horrific and potentially fatal car accident, but also exposes otherwise law-abiding citizens to the underbelly of our society: corrupt tow-truck drivers, arrested and often hardened criminals in the back of police vans, violence in jail cells or worse.

The campaign was very quickly noticed by the public and media; generating 120 media articles, and resulting in more than 165 000 views of the TVC online, over 6 000 likes on the Drive Dry Facebook page and 13 963 views on thunda.com – all within three months. It also generated in excess of R12.5million in earned media, helping to ignite a lively debate about the dangers of drinking and driving amongst South Africans.

Says Justin Gomes, FoxP2 executive creative director: "At FoxP2, we're always looking for lateral solutions to marketing challenges. Some clients push back. In this instance, brandhouse pushed us. The result is a campaign that has become a part of South African popular culture."

Charl Thom, group managing director: "The Drive Dry campaigns have not only been some of the most talked about communications in recent times, but they have also started shifting attitudes and behaviours towards drinking and driving in South Africa. We are incredibly proud of this work and our partnership with brandhouse who have allowed us to do brave work that has made a positive impact on our society."

Andy Fennell, chief marketing officer, Diageo, commented, "Congratulations to all of our Marketing Brilliance Award winners. I want to thank the agency teams for pushing hard to deliver brilliant work. The quality of the winning submissions shows that we have raised the bar, both in terms of core creative ideas and in particular with standards of execution. I hope to see more and more of our campaigns, people and agencies shooting for a ten as we aim for faster growth."