The Publicis Groupe owned global marketing and technology company DigitasLBi, has recently been named in the Media Plan of the Year competition, with their work for the Motorola Moto X smartphone earning them pride of place in the “Campaign Spending $25 Million or More” category. The annual awards from American advertising trade publication Adweek, honour the “Best media plans and executions throughout the agency world.” The campaign posited the phone as the world's first truly customisable smartphone, with DigitasLBi developing an integrated campaign personalising media in fresh and unique ways, including the first ever, interactive customisable print ad. The campaign has also been honoured with awards byadweek, the One Show, IAB MIXX, the New York Design Awards, and was on the shortlist at the Cannes Innovation Lions.
DigitasLBi, has recently been named in the Media Plan of the Year competition, with their work for the Motorola Moto X smartphone
Baba Shetty, chief strategy & media officer at DigitasLBi North America, said they are “honoured that Motorola and DigitasLBi have been recognised as Media Plan of the Year winners,” adding that he felt SVP and head of media planning, Paul Dalton “Led a terrific team effort, and the resulting cross-channel plan was insightful and truly breakthrough.” Speaking about the campaign, Dalton admitted that their budget was nowhere near competitors such as Apple and Samsung, so said they “Really needed to use the tools we had at our disposal to drive differentiation.” He said the “Key to Motorola's DNA and the products they produce is a high degree of innovation,” and that “Rather than communicate that through words,” they wanted to demonstrate it through the use of media.”
Moto X – Most Recent TV Commercial
The campaign used digital media like Facebook and Twitter to run communications picking out the dominant colour in a user's profile picture and matching it to a specific colour of Moto X, which has over 2,000 different potential colour combinations. In print, meanwhile, the agency produced a first-of-its-kind interactive ad that let users change the colours of the phone on the page. The ad ran in 150,000 copies of Wired magazine, and generated more than 72 million impressions in just under a month. The out-of-home executions were similarly unique, with bus shelters in Chicago and storefronts in Manhattan picking up the colours worn by passersby and the phone on the display changing accordingly. These customised phone images could them be shared through social media, with links to buy handsets of that specific colour. Dalton explains that “Rather than just use outdoor to build awareness,” they wanted to “Take it further and make it innovative, interactive, shoppable and shareable.”
Photo: Paul Dalton
In print, the agency produced a first-of-its-kind interactive ad that let users change the colours of the phone on the page
In related news; DigitasLBi was also recently named global media agency of record for Pitney Bowes, and there have been numerous DigitasLBi media leaders snapping up awards throughout ad land. Chief investment officer Adam Shlachter was honoured as an Adweek Media All-Star, Boston media lead Nicole Estebanell was named a finalist for The Ad Club's Media All Stars, and Dalton himself was honoured as an International Agency Innovator.
Benjamin Hiorns is a freelance writer and musician from Kidderminster in the UK. If he could choose a phone in any colour, it would be mauve. Because it's such a fun word to say!
