Unilever and Tate Anzur top PR Awards 2015

Unilever Singapore once again triumphed at Marketing magazine’s second annual PR Awards in Singapore last night being named ‘PR Awards Champion – Brand’ while Tate Anzur took home the top agency title just beating last year’s champion Golin Singapore in a tightly held competition.

Over 70 brands and more than 40 agencies were shortlisted by a panel of senior communications professionals from brands including Kimberly-Clark, MasterCard, Nestlé and OCBC Bank. For a full list of the judging panel please see here.

The judges were met with a fierce competition when assessing the best communications campaigns from Southeast Asia and two points or less separated the top two performing brands and agencies according to an exponential-weighted point system, meaning four points are allocated for Gold, two points for Silver and one point for Bronze.

Unilever Singapore’s trophy haul included, Gold awards in the categories ‘Best Engagement for a Targeted Community’, ‘Best PR-led Integrated Communications and ‘Best Product Re-Launch Campaign.’ They also scored Silver for Best Use of Social Media and Bronze for ‘Best Product Launch PR campaign.’

Award winning campaigns from Unilever Singapore included the ‘Taylor Swift The Red Tour presented by Cornetto.’ This campaign cleverly combined a product launch with event sponsorship and celebrity ambassadorship through pop star Taylor Swift to engage directly with the young adult target audience, yielding maximum effect, especially over social media.

World Wide Fund for Nature Singapore / Earth Hour Global was only just behind by one point and impressed the jury with the highly engaging ‘Use Your Power’ campaign for Earth Hour 2014. The campaign also used celebrity ambassadors, in the form of Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone and Jamie Foxx, the cast of the film ‘The Amazing Spiderman 2.”

The partnership with Sony Pictures Entertainment and the involvement of Spider-Man as the brand’s first superhero ambassador allowed it to deliver engaging content across digital platforms and with mass media coverage. This, coupled with the simple call to action ‘Use Your Power’ saw Earth Hour gain record breaking levels of participation to become the biggest environmental movement in the world in 2014.

The campaign secured them Gold in ‘Best Digital Communication Strategy’ and ‘Best PR Campaign by an In-House Communications Team’ as well as Silver in ‘Best Employee Engagement / Internal Communications,’ ‘Best Event-led PR Campaign and ‘Most Creative PR Stunt.’

Other high scoring brands included iFly Singapore, Microsoft Asia Pacific, Urban Redevelopment Authority Singapore and Glenfiddich.

Only two points separated the leading agencies Tate Anzur and Golin Singapore but Tate Anzur made it to the finish line as PR Awards Champion, the first time the local agency has won the prestigious title.

Campaigns that stood out for Tate Anzur included the ‘Singapore Night Festival 2014’ for the National Museum of Singapore, an event that had over 500,000 people in attendance and garnered a high levels of earned media coverage.

The agency bagged Gold in 'Best Event-led PR Campaign,’ ‘Best Government Sector PR Campaign,’  ‘Best Media Relations Campaign’ and ‘Best PR Idea’ and Silver for ‘Best Government Sector PR Campaign.’

A total of 77 prizes were awarded to over 300 finalists from across the region at the Shangri-La Hotel Singapore. See a full list of the 2015 winners here.

The PR Awards 2015 was sponsored by Prospect Resourcing Asia and supported by partners Choice Wines, Lanyon, Live!Studios and Peroni Nastro Azzurro.