Mars named 2021 Spikes Asia Advertiser of the Year

Spikes Asia has announced Mars Inc as this year’s recipient of the highly prestigious Advertiser of the Year award. The award is the highest accolade to acknowledge brands that set themselves apart through consistently outstanding creative work in Asia-Pacific.

As a multinational manufacturer of confectionery, pet food and other packaged food products, Mars demonstrated consistently groundbreaking work over the last number of years, winning innumerable acknowledgements for its bravery in advertising.

At Spikes Asia, juries have recognised many of Mars' prominent pieces of work coming out of APAC, including Hungerithm, SelfieStix and The Child Replacement Program, helping Mars to win 54 Spikes, including four Grands Prix and 11 golds.

The Advertiser of the Year award is calculated not only on points accumulated for wins across the past five years, but also based on the consistency of wins. Mars has now won the award for the second time in five years, after also earning it back in 2016. 

Hungerithm—a smart play on Snickers’ world-famous “You’re not you when you’re hungry” campaign—used an AI algorithm to measure the real time mood of Australians on social media to determine the price of Snickers bars in stores. The innovative work won Mars two Grands Prix, four golds, two silvers and five bronzes at the 2016 Spikes Asia Awards.

SelfieStix for Pedigree Dentastix created the world's first app that specialises in recognising dog faces and applying fun filters to transform them into a delightful cast of characters. Beyond a fun app for dog owners, the campaign achieved real business results reflected through a 24% increase in sales while lowering acquisition cost to 12 times the industry standard. The ingenious yet effective work won a Grand Prix, four golds, three silvers and three bronze Spikes in 2018, plus a Creative Effectiveness Spike in 2019.

Atifa Silk, Managing Director, Spikes Asia commenting on the announcement said, ”Spikes Asia is all about celebrating creatively brave work that challenges the norm and elevates work from Asia-Pacific onto the world stage. 2020 has been a difficult year for brands who have had to rewrite their marketing playbook many times over. I hope that the innovative spirit of Mars, Incorporated will encourage the region to keep producing work that brings joy and inspires.”

Accepting the Award on behalf of Mars, Jane Wakely, lead CMO, said, ”Never before has creativity been so critical to making a meaningful and measurable difference to people and planet through the power of our brands, and we’re tremendously grateful to Spikes Asia for recognising Mars as Advertiser of the Year.

"The work that we do together with our agency partners in Asia has helped inspire many of our most impactful global activations—whether Snickers Gaokao, Snickers Hungerithm, Pedigree SelfieStix or Pedigree’s Child Replacement—and speaks to the creativity and talent in the region. Together with our partners BBDO, DDB and MediaCom, this recognition makes us even more ambitious to elevate the role of creativity to create mutual value brand experiences that truly serve our consumers and partners moving forward. We’re truly honoured, thank you.”

In an in-depth interview with Campaign Asia-Pacific, Wakely further outlined many of the factors contributing to Mars' marketing success, which include deep, long-term relationships with its agencies. 

You can see more of Mars' work on Spikes Unwrapped. The newly released 2021 Spikes Asia Creativity Report, the leading global resource for benchmarking creativity and effectiveness across Asia-Pacific, is also available to download for free at www.spikes.asia.