Find out who won at The Drum Awards for Digital Advertising 2023

Taking home the top prize, the Grand Prix, is Valtech Radon for its work with Eton Shirts, the premium men’s shirt brand that, during a global recession, wanted to boost its e-commerce sales in the US market. But how do you sell white shirts to Wall Street types with wardrobes filled with only white shirts when the market is bleeding? By turning the economic downturn into an opportunity.

Valtech created ‘The Index Shirt,’ the first-ever product with its price pegged to the Nasdaq index. This unusual pricing mechanism triggered the hard-to-reach audience to engage with the brand and to strike when the price was right.

The results for this short-term campaign exceeded all expectations, with a 42% increase in new customer acquisition, a doubling of organic site traffic and the best-selling seasonal item of 2022. It also resulted in a record level of brand search queries and reached an audience of 142 million through media coverage.

The recipient of the Chair’s Award, meanwhile, as chosen by head judges Dathesh Rao of IBM and Carmen Graf from Indeed, is Zulu Alpha Kilo for its work with HomeEquity Bank and Royal Canadian Legion.

HomeEquity Bank is a Canadian bank specializing in reverse mortgages for retirees and is committed to the causes that are important to this group. As a result, its CSR efforts focus on veterans.

The Royal Canadian Legion is Canada’s leading organization for veterans. Remembrance Day is observed each year on November 11 and is a day to honor and remember the men and women who have served and continue to serve Canada. The Legion sells poppies as a fundraising mechanism and recently introduced digital poppies as a new way to drive financial support for veterans.

The campaign connected current homeowners to residents from the past by sending replica letters from Canadian soldiers who fought in the first and second world wars to their originally intended addresses across Canada.

Offering a window into the past, the letters had a QR code to help drive poppy donations and share a moving video featuring Canadian veterans speaking about their dreams of returning home.

Rao and Graf were joined on the judging panel this year by senior marketers from top brands, including BBC, Amazon Ads, Mars Wrigley and Adobe.

Among the other big winners of the night are Formerly Known As for its work with Pop-Tarts, Rethink for its work with Kraft Heinz and Mcann for its work with Mastercard.

You can read the full list of winners below and read the stories behind the winning work over on our Case Studies hub.

• Grand Prix: Valtech Radon for Eton shirts

• Chair Award: Zulu Alpha Kilo for HomeEquity Bank/Royal Canadian Legion

• Ad Sales Team of the Year: Ozone

• Integrated: Valtech Radon

• Programmatic Media Partnership: The Trade Desk

• Automotive: Thyga for Ineos

• B2B: Transmission for Henkel Adhesives Tech

• Gaming (In partnership with Stackadapt): Twitch Ads for WhatsApp

• Leader of the Year: Drew Stein, Audigent

• Best Tech Partner: Rakuten Advertsing for PerfromID

• Game-changing Technology: GumGum and Playground XYZ

• Out of Home: Wunderman Thompson for Nestlé

• Consumer Goods: Mullenlowe Lintas Group India

• Paid Search: Together for AIA New Zealand

• Content: Twitch Ads for WhatsApp

• Creativity: Formerly Known As for Pop-Tarts

• Media and Entertainment: The Economist

• Paid Social: Whalar for Flannels

• Digital Advertising for Good: MD OMD & OMD for the Home Office

• Inclusive: Youtube/Essence Media

• Not for Profit: MD OMD & OMD for the Home Office and Crafted for Doctors Without Borders UK (Médecins sans Frontières)

• Retail: Ogilvy UK for Argos

• Data and Insights: Net Conversion for Groundworks

• Performance: Launch for David Salsbury

• Food and Drink: Rethink for Kraft Heinz North America

• Healthcare and Pharma: Foundation Australia

• Video and Film: Mcann for Mastercard

• Agency Team of the Year: MG OMD & OMD

• High Impact: Valtech Radon for Eton shirts

• Travel, Leisure and Sport: VIOOH, JCDecaux, Yahoo, Starcom, Near for Tourism Tasmania

The Drum Awards for Digital Advertising took place at The Drum Labs, our very own bar, event and film studio in central London. You can rewatch all of our Awards shows so far over on The Drum TV.