With "Fair Go, Bro", Doug Pitt Helps Propel Virgin Mobile To Victory In The Twelfth Annual Creative Business Idea® Awards

NEW YORK, June 3, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Brad Pitt's brother. Urban regeneration. Tweeting for condoms. Ghoulish monsters. What do they all have in common? Transformative advertising.

Havas Worldwide recognized the best Creative Business Ideas^® to emerge from the global agency network in 2012 in this year's Creative Business Idea Awards competition. Havas Worldwide Sydney and One Green Bean's work for Virgin Mobile Australia, which used an unusual take on the "celebrity" endorsement for a global impact far above its media spend with "Fair Go, Bro", won the gold prize. London agency Arnold KLP's "Transform Your Patch" campaign for PepsiCo took silver, Havas Worldwide UK's "#1share1condom" for Durex took bronze, and "Monsters", created by Havas Worldwide Helsinki for Finnish charity Fragile Childhood, was awarded an honorable mention.

Creative Business Ideas (CBIs) are Havas Worldwide's strategic platform for transforming brands and driving profitable growth for clients. Established in 2000, the annual CBI Awards recognize the very best of those ideas from across the global network, and in past years have awarded such iconic advertising as Air France's "Making the Sky the Best Place on Earth," Evian's "Live Young," and Dos Equis' "The Most Interesting Man in the World."

The 2013 gold medalist, "Fair Go, Bro", brings to life Virgin Mobile Australia's promise of "a fair go for all" not by featuring a famous celebrity spokesperson; instead they gave an unknown sibling with a famous family name a taste of the celebrity lifestyle.  Doug Pitt (younger brother of Brad) washes his own car and pays his own bills. But, "Everyone deserves the celebrity treatment. Even a celebrity's non-celebrity sibling."

The campaign, despite a small media budget compared with its competitors, has driven Virgin Mobile Australia to its best-ever sales quarter — and has turned the non-famous Pitt into a viral sensation. The spot racked up 1.3 million YouTube views within just its first week and has received over 100 international press features, from the USA to Russia to Chile.

"This campaign has been a game-changer for us," said Nicole Bardsley, Head of Brand and Acquisition at Virgin Mobile Australia. "Havas Worldwide and One Green Bean collaborated brilliantly to create such an original concept, and the strength of the strategy and insight behind this work is borne out by the way this campaign has grown our business."

Arnold KLP's silver-winning "Transform Your Patch" helped PepsiCo create a simple, tangible solution for inner-city renewal: Each purchase of specially labeled soft drinks translated into a centimeter of grass planted at public green spaces across Great Britain, including parks, playgrounds, and athletic fields. The campaign helped to regenerate land at 176 different sites around the country, and more than 3 million people voted online for their favorite "patch" of land, with thousands more volunteering.

Bronze went to a global social media campaign with a social impact. Created by Havas Worldwide UK for global client Durex, the Reckitt Benckiser brand, "#1share1condom" engaged people around the world to help fight HIV on World AIDS Day. Durex encouraged people to share HIV facts on social media using the #1share1condom hashtag, with each share automatically generating another condom donation from Durex. The movement spread globally, reaching 65 million people in over 165 countries on Twitter alone, and generating 5 million condoms donated by Durex.

"Monsters", the commended Honorable Mention work by Havas Worldwide Helsinki, confronts a startling problem: One in four children in Finland is affected by parental alcohol abuse. The Fragile Childhood foundation asked Havas Worldwide to help raise awareness, provoke public debate, and create a large social media impact on a small budget. The resulting film, published on YouTube in both in Finnish and English, picked up a million hits within five days and has generated discussion in many major media outlets worldwide. Locally, the campaign achieved blanket coverage throughout TV, print, and online media that went far beyond the client's expectations. To date, total views on YouTube have exceeded 2.1 million.

"Crucial to the success of this year's four top campaigns is the way they've all taken on a life of their own in the digital sphere," said Havas Worldwide Global CMO Matt Weiss. "Everyone these days is trying to build a campaign that 'goes viral,' but this year's winning campaigns have actually done so. They demonstrate perfectly the way bold, attention-grabbing creative helps our clients' business grow."

In total, Havas Worldwide agencies submitted 77 entries from 33 countries, which were then shortlisted for final selection. A cross-disciplinary panel of Havas Worldwide talent — composed of nearly 40 judges across every region in the network and from creative, planning, digital, new business, and client services backgrounds — met over a series of Google Hangouts for real-time discussion. Out of these internationally collaborative Hangouts came the final selection of the winners.

"For over a decade, Havas Worldwide agencies across the globe have been united in their common commitment to the core value represented by the CBI: absolutely brilliant creative that has a substantial, measurable impact on the client's business," said Andrew Benett, Havas Worldwide Global President. "I'm very proud both of the work we've chosen, and the way we've brought together some of our best talent across all disciplines and regions for the evaluation process — echoing the streamlined, integrated offering we've put forward as a global agency following our 2012 rebrand."

More about Creative Business Ideas^® and the CBI Awards

For over a decade, Creative Business Ideas^® have been the mantra, mission, and mark of distinction for Havas Worldwide. They are our obsession — and the promise we make to clients across the globe. What exactly are Creative Business Ideas^®? They are brilliant ideas that transform brands, transcend media, and drive profitable growth for our clients. They are ideas that very often do not change simply how consumers view a company but how a company views itself, removing internal constraints and offering the business new spaces in which to explore and grow.

In 2000, Havas Worldwide launched an agency-wide contest to foster and reward exemplary high-level creative thinking: the Creative Business Idea^® Awards. In 2013, Havas Worldwide initiated the Google Hangout format to use digital platforms to bring together an international jury. Highlights of past juries include jurors such as Andrew Jaffe, executive director of the CLIO Awards; Bill Taylor, co-founder of Fast Company magazine; Professor Douglas Holt of the Harvard Business School; and Tom Kelley, general manager of IDEO. The contest is open to all 316 Havas Worldwide agencies in 75 countries, and the winning teams walk away with substantial cash prizes.

About Havas Worldwide

Havas Worldwide, formerly known as Euro RSCG Worldwide, is a leading integrated marketing communications agency and was the first agency to be named Global Agency of the Year by both Advertising Age and Campaign in the same year. The Havas Worldwide Network is made up of 11,000 employees in 120 cities and 75 countries, with 316 offices, and provides advertising, marketing, corporate communications, and digital and social media solutions to clients, including Air France, BNP Paribas, Citigroup, Danone Group, IBM, Lacoste, Merck, Mondelez International, Pernod Ricard, PSA Peugeot Citroen, Reckitt Benckiser, Sanofi, and Volvo. Headquartered in New York, Havas Worldwide is the largest unit of the Havas group, a world leader in communications (Euronext Paris SA: HAV.PA).

Contact:
Steve Sapka
Havas Worldwide
(305) 479-5208
[email protected]

SOURCE Havas Worldwide