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.

The Hardy Boys is an independent 70-member through-the-line communications agency situated in Durban, owned and managed by Dale Tomlinson. During 2012, The Hardy Boys was selected as the lead creative agency for vodka brand Smirnoff’s expansion into Africa. The Hardy Boys was brought onboard to create a campaign to support the launch of SNAPP, a natural fruit-flavoured cider specifically created for the expanding African female consumers market.

The Hardy Boys focused on creating a sophisticated and empowering campaign that would position SNAPP as a refined, stylish alcoholic beverage, ultimately creating an immediate connection between the brand and the new age African women. To connect with the local female market, the team found a promising local girl band to act as the face of the brand. Each member represented certain brand characteristics associated with the cider which the target audience could resonate with, such as confidence, sophistication and style.

To bring the concept to life The Hardy Boys created campaign material for TV, outdoor, print, radio and below – the–line (BTL) specifically on and off trade. Bloom, a London-based branding design agency was brought onboard to create a bottle and can design for the SNAPP fruit range. The team successfully delivered a classic, sophisticated bottle design that was able to compete with similar counterparts and appealed to the female market, without alienating men.

Dale Tomlinson from The Hardy Boys commented, “It is always a great privilege for my team and I to be able to work on the Diageo brands, especially when the campaign is being launched in Africa. Over the years we have developed valuable relationships with other African agencies and these partnerships have empowered our team to deliver where it really matters, driving volume to achieve good sales targets. SNAPP is a great example of this: launched in 2012, 200 000 cases have been sold in Kenya and Nigeria alone.”

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.”

The final winners as announced at the ceremony in London are the following:

Category: Responsible Drinking Campaign
- Winning agency: FoxP2
- Campaign: ‘Drive Dry’ (Africa)

Category: Design & Gifting
- Winning agencies: invigor8tion and Raison Pure
- Campaign: Diamond Jubilee by Johnnie Walker & Son's (Global)

Category: Bought
- Winning agency: Neogama-BBH
- Campaign: Johnnie Walker ´Rock´ TV Campaign (LatAm)

Category: Owned
- Winning agencies: Brain Juice Group
- Campaign: Bushmills Facebook Program Poland (Eastern Europe)

Category: Owned
- Winning agencies: Praekelt, BCL, Carberry Communications, Endemol
- Campaign: Guinness Football Challenge (Africa)

Category: Earned
- Winning agencies: Mindshare, Advocate, The Newtons
- Campaign: Johnnie Walker ‘Keep Walking Greece’ (Western Europe)

Category: Innovation
- Winning agencies: Bloom, The Hardy Boys
- Campaign: ‘Snapp’ launch (Africa)

Category: Innovation
- Winning agency: Barker Grey
- Campaign: ‘Bundaberg Master Distillers Launch' (Asia Pacific)

Category: Innovation
- Winning agencies: Landor and JWT
- Campaign: Smirnoff ‘Whipped & Fluffed’ product launch (North America)

Category: Integrated category regional winner
- Winning agency partners: Anomaly, Taylor PR, Landor, MKTG, Carat and Colangelo
- Campaign: Captain Morgan Launch of 'Life, Love & Loot' Campaign (North America)

Category: Entrepreneur
- Winning agency partners: Carat, Story PR, KK Outlet
- Campaign: Talisker Atlantic Challenge (Western Europe)

Category: Category Development - Off Trade
- Winning agency: LOVE
- Campaign: Whisky Category Father’s Day – ‘Raise a Glass to Your Dad" 360 Campaign

Category: Category Development - On Trade
- Winning agency: TMW
- Campaign: Gordon’s Elderflower (Western Europe)

Category: Special marketing leadership team award
- Winning agency partners: Edelman, Precious, Asylum
- Campaign: Johnnie Walker & Son's Voyager program (Asia Pacific)

Best mobile campaign
- Winning agency: Anomaly
- Campaign: Captain Morgan

Best on trade design
- Winning partner: Conran Design
- Campaign: Gordons Ten Green Bottles