The force was with Montreal’s Sid Lee at the Digital Marketing Awards last night, as the agency took home several awards, including Best of Show, for its Star Wars-themed work for Adidas.
Sid Lee collected a total of 10 awards on the night, primarily for the Adidas campaign–an immersive experience built around the Star Wars series that included augmented reality shoes and video that seamlessly integrated celebrities such as Snoop Dogg, Noel Gallagher and David Beckham into footage from the original George Lucas movies.
The campaign established the Adidas Neighbourhood Where Creativity Lives, an alternative world where Greedo rubbed shoulders with David Beckham (their interaction even alluding to Star Wars’ ongoing “Han fired first” debate) and TIE Fighters whizzed through the air. The sneakers themselves became game controllers, with their built-in augmented reality codes opening up an interactive 3D world when held in front of a webcam.
The campaign also earned Gold in the Online Advertising–Integrated Campaign, Other Digital Media–Online Video and Other Digital Media–On the Edge categories, as well as craft awards for animation, art direction and post-production.
Sid Lee also earned a Gold in the Other Digital Media–Mobile Applications/Web category for its SAQ iPhone Application for the Société des alcools du Québec. The application, which garnered over 80,000 downloads in its first four months, enabled users to access in-store promotions, find the closest SAQ store based on current location and determine the availability of a specified product.
A total of 36 awards (13 gold, 12 silver and 11 bronze) were awarded in 16 categories in the show honouring the country’s best digital advertising, held at Toronto’s Queen Elizabeth Theatre.
Proximity Canada (occasionally in partnership with BBDO Canada) earned a total of five awards on the night, including Gold in the Websites/Microsites – Consumer Packaged Goods category for its “Doritos Viralocity” site, which invited consumers to name a new flavour of Doritos chip, create an ad for the product and then make it go viral. The initiative garnered more than 7 million views, more than 700,000 unique visitors to the site and 660,800 embeds, shares and bookmarks.
While Sid Lee cleaned up for work featuring Darth Vader, MacLaren McCann brought home a pair of Golds for a campaign featuring a more contemporary masked character: Halo’s Master Chief.
The Toronto agency won Gold in both the Online Advertising–Online Campaign and Other Digital Media–Gaming categories for its “Halo 3 ODST Mini ARG” campaign for Microsoft’s signature gaming franchise.
Based on the insight that Halo’s primary audience, men 18-34, likes to play games, MacLaren McCann developed a multi-dimensional scavenger hunt to invite fans to an exclusive Toronto launch party for the game. Players needed to view viral videos, search for hidden clues, decipher encrypted messages and track GPS coordinates to gain access to the event.
The campaign yielded hundreds of social media discussions, nearly 7,000 YouTube views, more than 1,700 Google Maps page views and a launch event where attendance far exceeded goals .
Toronto-based Red Urban Canada collected a pair of Golds, one in the Websites/Microsites–Consumer Products for its “Anyone for a Sunday Drive” site for Volkswagen Canada–which enabled visitors to create a virtual Sunday drive by adding beats and samples to an old song that accompanied first-person driving footage. The agency also won a craft award for casting for its “Super Sexy CPR” initiative for Fortnight Lingerie.
Montreal’s Blueblancrouge won Gold in the Online Advertising–Online Single category for its “Cut” banner ad for Opinel knives that enabled users to type a word into a text box and then dissect it using the knife.
Manifest Communications won Gold in the Websites/Microsites–Public Service for its “Renew the World” site for the Canadian Stem Cell Foundation. The site housed videos featuring some of the world’s leading stem cell scientists and a “Stem Cell Charter” that when signed led visitors into an interactive universe where they could personalize a floating cell.
Crispin Porter + Bogusky Canada was a Gold winner in the Other Digital Media–Social Media category for its “Showerpooling” Facebook initiative for the Axe brand. To link the Axe brand with Earth Day, CP+B created the concept of “Showerpooling,” encouraging guys to conserve water by showering with girls. The theory was espoused through a “Showerpooling 101” video, a “Start a Showerpool” application for guys and “Tell the World You’re Into Showerpooling” badges that could be added to a Facebook profile.
Cloudraker won Gold in the Websites/Microsites–Entertainment and Arts category for its LeMassif.com site for Quebec ski resort Le Massif de Charlevoix.
Atelier Amuse won Gold in the Other Digital Media–Offline Digital category for its “Arttvscope” initiative for the French-language cultural channel ARTV. The tool gave users the opportunity to partake in sold-out cultural events by letting them see what was happening inside the venue–even letting them change the camera angle and zoom in and out.
TBWAToronto rounded out winners with a craft award for direction for its “Drift” ad promoting the Nissan Sentra SE-R.
Other agency winners on the night included Cartier, Cossette, Grip Limited, Ogilvy Montreal, Organic, Taxi Canada, Taxi 2, Trapeze and ZAK.
