Spikes Asia Awards 2022: Campaign's contenders, part 2

‘Game Responsibly’: Early Man and DDB Mudra 

Brand: Battlegrounds Mobile India (BGMI)
Category: Film Craft

What it's about: Popular Indian mobile video gamer BGMI needed to tackle overgaming in a light-hearted way and this minute-long film hits the nail on the head. The protagonist profusely annoys his family by emanating video game sounds, and it ends with his family subtly promoting BGMI features including OTP authentication for minors and limits on daily in-game spending. Every craft detail—direction, sound design, editing, casting, and scripting—is executed to pitch perfection. 

Nominated by: Surekha Ragavan, experiential and PR editor and editor of PRWeek Asia

"BGMI was seeking a relatable and non-preachy way to combat overgaming, and this campaign delivers just that with humour and excellent production levels to boot. The combination of quick transitions, precise sound design, and deadpan humour is so deeply effective, we dare you to not watch it at least twice. And because this category was chockful of outstanding entries, we’re going to rattle off a few special mentions: This stunner of a film for UN Aids by Good Morning Mumbai and FCB India is so cinematic, it’s hard to tear your eyes away; this film for Suntory by Dentsu Japan is a feat of production design and visual effects; and this beautiful stop-motion animation film painstakingly created characters made out of grey hairs."

'A career-limiting film': Saatchi & Saatchi New Zealand

Brand: Global women
Category: Film

What it's about: It's about a woman who inexplicably makes a series of career-limiting moves at her office.  She starts by chopping off a colleague's necktie and ends by taking his cookie, chewing it up, and spitting it out on his desk. But the tagline turns the seeming comedy into tragedy when it informs us that these moves won't be as damaging to her career as having a baby would be. The film came out for International Women's Day a year ago.

Nominated by: Matthew Miller, managing editor

"Many ads are about the setup and the twist: How they hook you in, and then how they confound your expectations to deliver their message. Rarely is that familiar blueprint followed as elegantly as it is here. The animation style arrests your attention while the surprising actions of the main character—and her priceless deadpan reactions—keep you watching until the devastating tagline arrives. This was also smart counter-programming for IWD; in both its style and in the specificity of the issue it addressed, it stood out among a crowd of more straightforward, broad films that were trying to elicit big emotional reactions."

The Unclosable Store: Che Proximity Australia

Brand: Samsung
Category: Creative Ecommerce

What it's about: How can Samsung keep stealing footfall from the Apple Store when it’s closed for renovations? Che Proximity Sydney conceptualised a brand experience campaign that had users scanning hundreds of QR codes on the wall of Samsung’s Sydney Parramatta Experience store. Visitors and passers-by unlocked AR product demos and turned their iOS devices into Samsung OS for trials. 

Nominated by: Minnie Wang, senior reporter

"Closing an experience store at a great location for renovation purposes is a potential waste for a brand. However, Che Proximity’s ‘Unclosable Store’ easily turned the location into an interactive promotion for Samsung. The campaign persuaded Apple users to ‘try something new’ without entering a Samsung store. In the end, 57% of people who engaged with the QR codes were on an iOS device, a huge success for the brand."

'The Dissolving Bottle': BBDO Guerrero

Brand: BBDO Guerrero
Category: Design

What it's about: BBDO Guerrero introduced The Dissolving Bottle, a redesign of traditional small-bottle shampoo packaging that actually dissolves when used. It aimed to make shampoo bars more intuitive by giving them a shape similar to the kind of small bottles used in hotels. According to the agency, each bar replaced a 90ml bottle of shampoo, weighed 130 grams, and was made with organic ingredients by a local Filipino manufacturer, The Naturale Market. Brands had the chance to customise their own versions of The Dissolving Bottle and the agency offered to supply the moulds at cost to artisanal producers for community livelihood projects.

Nominated by: Rahul Sachitanand, associate editor

“In a time of over-the-top messaging around the environment, it’s often smaller ideas that get swept away in a tsunami of virtue-signal advertising. While the venerable Ad Nut termed this idea something of a bait-and-switch strategy to reel in the environmentally conscious, I liked the idea for its simplicity. Having just moved countries, the soap and shampoo bottles used in my quarantine stay made me acutely conscious of the damage being wreaked during these stints. It’s good to see an agency devise out-of-the-box solutions, which hopefully get commercialised.”  

'Songkran Stranger': Wunderman Thompson Thailand  

Brand: TikTok
Category: Entertainment

What it's about: When the pandemic prevented Thai people from celebrating Songkran, their beloved water festival and longest holiday in the streets, TikTok found a way to bring it to the digital world. In its first interactive film, anyone in Thailand was able to appear in the film alongside two of Thailand’s top actors using the plaform’s ‘stitch’ or ‘duet’ features.

Nominated by: Robert Sawatzky, editorial director

“Allowing users to put their own spin on entertainment is what TikTok does best.  But what took this form of user-generated fun to another level was the beautifully shot scenes, the playfulness of the user-actor interactions with water and powder and the inventiveness the campaign sparked. The 92,000 editions and 94 million views reflect mass participation rates that back up the film’s intention to keep a meaningful cultural festival relevant even if no one was out getting wet in the streets.