24 absolutely incredible examples of social media marketing

Social media

A short time ago, a good social media campaign meant letting people know you were on Facebook. Over the past few years, that’s changed dramatically, to the point where social campaigns meet and sometimes even exceed their traditional advertising counterparts in terms of creativity and innovation. Small wonder then that a lot of business executives now view social media as being as important as a corporate website and more traditional forms of online advertising.

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All the evidence suggests they’re right to think that way too. Research from eMarketer suggests that brands can profit dramatically from a well-executed social campaign and a 2012 study by research company Millward-Brown showed that there was a direct correlation between how successful a company is and how well it uses social media.

That goes a long way to explaining why it’s become such big business. Twitter alone is expected to rake in US$1-billion from ads next year and a large portion of the US$1.36-billion in revenue Facebook reported in Q1 of 2013 came from ads.

With that kind of spend comes serious incentive for innovation and The Bees Awards, a San Francisco-based award for the best use of social media, now in its fourth iteration aims to recognise the best examples of social media innovation. The awards have just announced the winners in 24 categories, whittled down from some 83 nominees.

For their fourth edition, The Bees Awards received social media marketing campaigns from six continents and 23 countries. While that diversity is perhaps not as widely reflected in the winning entries as it was in the nominations (more than half of the winning campaigns are from the US), campaigns from Russia and Brazil both managed represent emerging market countries with wins.

The Russian winning entry in the “Best Innovation” category, Blind, comes from the Hungry Boys agency and was one of the campaigns that we picked as being particularly strong when the nominations were announced. The campaign aims to change the treatment of blind children by giving people insight into what they go through. The primary way of doing this was with a website that challenged people to navigate a character through a virtual city using only sound.

Brazil’s winning entry meanwhile came in the “Best use of App for Social Media Marketing” category. The app, built for Bradesco F.Banking by AG2 Publicis Modem. The agency built a fully functional Facebook banking app for Bradesco, a top Brazilian bank. Capitalising on the social banking trend, the app came with the promise of the same level of security offered by internet banking. But it also leveraged the social power of Facebook by allowing people to create financial share and collaboration funds covering everything from money for humanitarian causes to money for a friend’s birthday party.

Winners in some of the other categories will perhaps have been more familiar to web users around the world. The winner in the viral video category, for instance, Bubba’s Hover from US agency Thinkmodo — which saw top golfer Bubba Watson riding around in a hovercraft modified to function as a golf cart — has racked up nearly 8-million views on YouTube.

The Dragon Shadow Launch campaign for the third season of hit show Game of Thrones, which took top honours in the Best Art Direction category, received serious attention online. The ad, which was placed in The New York Times, had a dragon shadow covering a double spread in the paper over fake articles that hinted at plotlines from “Game of Thrones.”

The full list of winners, as well as nominees can be found below:

1. Best Use of Micro-Blogging Platform

Discovery Channel – Moonshiners OMD United States
Winner: Metropole Tweetphony Havas WorldWide Amsterdam Netherlands
Curators of Sweden Volontaire Sweden
The Oreo Blackout Tweet 360i United States

2. Best Use of Social Media Platform

#friskissthlm Volt Sweden
The Social Home Tour Artplan Brazil
Frito-Lay Do Us a Flavor OMD United States
Winner: Skype: Say it with Skype 1000heads United Kingdom
Papermate World’s Most Stolen Pen PHD United States

3. Best Use of Mobile

#friskissthlm Volt Sweden
Winner: Discovery Channel – Gold Rush OMD United States
AMOURUGBY KIDS LOVE JETLAG (FRED & FARID GROUP) France
Propel Kiip OMD United States

4. Best Use of Alternative Tools

Winner: Dunk Tank Clear Channel Spectacolor United States
GODIVA LOVE&HUG project Saatchi and Saatchi Fallon Tokyo Japan
The CW “Twitter in Print” OMD United States
Civil Rights Captcha Prime Sweden

5. Best Use of Ad Banners on Social Media Platform

Bugaboo’s 3 For 30 – Facebook Ads Buzzsmith United States
Rav4 – No Time to Waste! Banners Saatchi & Saatchi LA United States
No winner has been awarded by jury Ref. Rules & Criteria

6. Best Use of Analytic Tools

Winner: Agora Social Visualizer 1000heads United Kingdom
Top Voice Cossette Canada

7. Best Engagement with Customers

Winner: Discovery Channel – Moonshiners OMD United States
Revlon SuperLustrous Truth or Dare VML Digital / GPY&R Australia
Samsung Q470 product launch campaign MSLGROUP Asia China
Frito-Lay Do Us a Flavor OMD United States

8. Best Relationship with Blogs

MILRAM Blogger Cookbook strg. GmbH Germany
VO5 Express Yourself Havas Worldwide London United Kingdom
Winner: Cotton 24-Hour Runway Show Jack Morton Worldwide United States

9. Best Reputation Management

Winner: Tanks Of Thanks Colle+McVoy United States
Basil Hayden Walton Isaacson United States

10. Best Crisis Management

Winner: Making a Difference for a Sandy Hook Family Havas PR North America United States

11. Best Social CRM

Winner: The Social Home Tour Artplan Brazil
Mitsubishi MyCover Ampfy Brazil

12. Best Branded Viral Video

Human Motorcycles: Behind the Scenes with the Progressive International Motorcycle Shows i.d.e.a. United States
Winner: Bubba’s Hover Thinkmodo United States
100 Cars For Good “Click” Saatchi & Saatchi LA United States
Tundra Endeavour – The Ultimate Journey Saatchi & Saatchi LA United States

13. Best Marketing Within Social Games

Gatorade Bolt! Mobile Integration OMD United States
MyLowe’s Sims Social OMD United States
Winner: Intel Angry Birds OMD United States

14. Best use of Geo-Location for Social Media Marketing

The Great Beach CleanApp INNOCEAN USA United States
Hertz Foursquare OMD United States
Winner: Tag the Weather Saatchi & Saatchi Stockholm Sweden

15. Best use of App for Social Media Marketing

“A Year in the Like” Edelman Digital United States
Papermate World’s Most Stolen Pen PHD United States
Winner: Bradesco F.Banking AG2 Publicis Modem Brazil
Mitsubishi MyCover Ampfy Brazil

16. Best Tool or Technology for Social Media Marketing

Winner: The CW “Twitter in Print” OMD United States
The Cisco Learning Network Learning@Cisco United States
The Social Home Tour Artplan Brazil
Adaptive Canvas Studiocom United States

17. Best Student Work

Winner: Google Music Translate Forsbergs School of Design and Advertising Sweden
The Red Cross – TweetAid Berghs School of Communication Sweden
Final Chapter DMJX: Creative Communication Denmark
Underground Library Miami Ad School United States
JetBlue Empty Seats Miami Ad School United States
The Digital Donor Card DMJX: Creative Communication Denmark

18. World Student Brief

AFS Thai Sports Media Design School New Zealand
Round The World in 80 Seconds Media Design School Media Design School New Zealand
Winner: Snapchat with Chile Media Design School New Zealand
The Cushy App Media Design School New Zealand

19. Best Social Media Marketing Theory

Winner: Measuring What Matters Blueocean Market Intelligence United States

20. Best Innovation

Winner: Blind Hungry Boys Russia
The CW “Twitter in Print” OMD United States
Discovery Channel – Moonshiners OMD United States
The Social Home Tour Artplan Brazil

21. Best Copywriting

Basil Hayden Walton Isaacson United States
Winner: Advertising Week Question Generator Colle+McVoy United States
100 Cars For Good “Click” Saatchi & Saatchi LA United States

22. Best Art Direction

Samsung Make A Wish Campaign for Valentine’s Day Havas Media Hong Kong SAR China
Basil Hayden Walton Isaacson United States
Winner: GAME OF THRONES DRAGON SHADOW LAUNCH PHD United States
Prius Hum Saatchi & Saatchi LA United States

23. Best Campaign

THE COUNTRYWIDE JOKE FRED & FARID PARIS France
Adobe Marketing Cloud: Metrics, Not Myth Edelman Digital United States
SmartWool Fan Field Tester Program Victors & Spoils United States
Winner: The Great American Bacon Barter 360i United States
Civil Rights Captcha Prime Sweden
Tundra Endeavour Campaign Saatchi & Saatchi LA United States

24. Agency of the Year

1000heads 1000heads United Kingdom
Winner: 360i 360i United States
OMD OMD United States
Edelman Digital Edelman Digital United States
MSLGROUP Asia MSLGROUP Asia China

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