It was a real good night for Unilever and its agency partner Ogilvy & Mather Toronto at the 2011 Cassies held in Toronto Monday, as the two took home the Grand Prix for work on the Hellmann’s brand.
Unilever began its “real food” campaign in 2007 by putting urban dwellers closer to their veggies with specially created downtown gardens bearing the Hellmann’s brand mark.
In 2008, Hellmann’s partnered with Evergreen–a not-for-profit organization that helps Canadians create natural urban spaces, and doubled the number of community garden plots.
The effort evolved in 2009 to include a three-minute, animated “mini-documentary” with statistics on Canada’s produce imports, and EatRealEatLocal.ca where shoppers could connect with grocers selling local products, and provide social media tools to let visitors spread the word.
The “real food” campaign also won gold in the Best Integrated and Sustained Success categories.
DDB Canada also earned some hardware for work on a Unilever brand. The agency’s Toronto office took home two gold trophies in the Best Integrated and Off to a Good Start categories for its work on the Knorr “Salty” Sidekicks campaign. DDB Canada also took home a silver and bronze for its work on the Canadian Tourism Commission and Subaru, respectively.
Montreal-based agency Sid Lee took home four awards: two gold in the Retail and Best Launch categories for SAQ’s Taste Tags; silver for Videotron in the Services, General category and bronze for Tourism Montreal in the Events & Seasonal category.
Other gold winners included:
•TBWA/Toronto for Nissan Canada in the Events & Seasonal cateogry
•Crispin Porter + Bogusky Canada for Molson Coors’ Molson Canadian 67 in the Off to a Good Start category
•Wunderkind for Plan International Canada’s “Because I am a Girl” campaign in the Not-for-Profit category
•St-Jacques Vallee Young&Rubicam for Danone Canada’s Activia Yogurt in the Sustained Success category
•Dentsu for Sunnybrook Fundraising in the Not-for-Profit Category
There were 31 Cassies awarded in all: 11 golds, 10 silvers and 10 bronzes, as well as the Grand Prix.
“The Cassies remain our industry’s ultimate test of the hard work of agencies to respond to the demand from clients to prove effectiveness,” said Laurie Young, managing director, Ogilvy & Mather Toronto and 2011 Cassies chair, in a statement.
“Agencies are being asked to prove their worth and value more than ever and this year’s winners are shining examples of impressive business results and prove, convincingly, that these results were substantially caused by the advertising,” she said.
For the third year in a row, the Cassies were included as part of the Institute of Communication Agencies‘ Advertising Week programming, which continues today with a number of events and speakers including KISS rock legend Gene Simmons.
