Winners announced at The Drum Awards for Out of Home 2023

Taking home the top prize, the Grand Prix, is Rethink for its ‘Made for downtown living’ work with Ikea Canada. This campaign addressed the fact that, for decades, Torontonians have had to venture outside of the downtown area to get to an Ikea store. Until now, the brand experience was a ‘pilgrimage’ out to Etobicoke, Burlington, Vaughan or North York. This resulted in many would-be customers opting out of the hassle of the Ikea trip in favor of more easily accessible options.

To grab attention from an always-busy big city media landscape and to prove to Torontonians that Ikea truly is “made for downtown living,” it set out to do something that had never been done before. It made living ads out of the city itself – using real homes (with real people in them) and turning them into instantly recognizable Ikea ‘billboards.’ It leaned on its iconic Ikea brand assets, like its logo and price call-outs from the world-famous catalog, and the homes instantly felt reminiscent of the iconic in-store showrooms. Except these were real, living windows into the world of potential that Ikea could unlock in the homes of Torontonians.

From there, it surrounded the city with an urban-inspired OOH campaign with directional and Toronto-specific messaging like ‘Come in on your commute’ and ‘Go TO Ikea’ that encouraged consumers to head over to the new store. Placements were seen on routes of travel (TTC station takeovers, TSAs, Gardiner Expressway), within walking distance of the store (Yonge & Dundas Square) and in spaces where people were actively shopping (Yonge & Dundas Square, College Park).

Receiving the Chair’s Award, meanwhile, as chosen by Puma’s Luke Li and David & Goliath’s Avital Pinchevsky, are Adylic, Talon, MG OMD and Uncommon for their work with British Air.

Following a major period of uncertainty and disruption for the travel industry, 2022 represented a crucial year to reinvigorate UK travelers. While brand awareness remained high, BA needed to increase consideration among fierce competition from low-cost carriers. ‘British Originals’ offered the opportunity to utilize mass, targeted media to differentiate BA from the category through format and behavior.

DOOH was the hero channel driving mass reach across London and the South East, communicating 520+ copy lines and emphasizing the unique reasons for Brits to choose BA. The flexibility and immediacy of dynamic DOOH enabled the creative agency, Uncommon, to have the freedom to invent as many unique copy lines as they could dream up without the logistical limitations of having to produce every single iteration.

This is where Adylic’s dynamic CMS offered the perfect solution to deliver the campaign effectively and efficiently across multiple media owners, formats and environments. Further contextual triggers such as weather, time of day, location and cultural moments increased relevance, while additional reach and engagement were maximized by running alongside TV/BVOD, social, cinema and radio.

Pinchevsky and Li were joined on the judging panel this year by senior marketers from top brands and agencies, including Specsavers, The Coca-Cola Company, Spark Foundry and FCB.

Among the other big winners of the night are Elvis for its work with Greenpeace, Colossal Media for its work with Harry’s and The Trade Desk and Dentsu Red Star for their work with Tiger Beer.

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 (in association with Alight Media): Rethink for Ikea Canada

• Chair Award: Adylic, Talon, MG OMD and Uncommon for British Airways

• Agency team of the year: Rethink

• Leader of the Year: Dr Lee Bofkin, chief executive officer, Global Street Art

• Hand-Painted Mural or Display: Colossal Media for Harry’s

• Classic Posters and Banners: Kinetic and PHD for Warner Bros

• AR/VR: Google x Global Street Art for Google Arts & Culture

• Digital (in association with Alight Media): Adylic, Talon, MG OMD and Uncommon for British Airways

• Innovation: Posterscope for EE/BT

• Not-For-Profit, Charity and Government: Elvis for Greenpeace UK

• Limited Budget: Mediabridge, The Grove Media and Amanda Malpass PR for Dressing Room 5

• Multi-Channel Campaign: Adylic, Talon, MG OMD and Uncommon for British Airways

• Use of Data: Wavemaker, VCCP and Kinetic & DOOH.com for Transport for London

• Experiential: Publicis Media Luxe at Publicis Media for Louis Vuitton, part of LVMH

• Use of Location: Rethink for Ikea Canada

• Copywriting: Adylic, Talon, MG OMD and Uncommon for British Airways

• Global Campaign: Kinetic, DOOH.com, EssenceMediacomX for L'Oréal

• Regional Campaign: EssenceMediacom, Kinetic, DOOH.com for Uber Eats

• OOH For Good: Rethink for Decathlon Canada

• Use of Programmatic: The Trade Desk and Dentsu Red Star for Tiger Beer

• Spectacular: Publicis Media Luxe at Publicis Media for Louis Vuitton, part of LVMH

The Drum Awards for Out of Home 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.