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Gunn Media100 reveals the world’s best campaigns, agencies and brands for media excellence in advertising

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GLOBAL – Gunn Report, the global index of excellence in advertising, has released the results of the 2018 Gunn Media 100, a global ranking of the world’s most awarded and applauded campaigns and companies based on their performance in media competitions around the world.

Gunn Report, now part of WARC, tracks the winners’ lists of close to 30 of the most important global, regional and national media awards shows to compile Gunn Media 100 – a list of the 100 best campaigns for creativity and innovation in media, along with the best-performing agencies, networks, holding companies, brands, advertisers and countries.

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The highest-ranked campaign in the Gunn Media 100 is McDonald’s ‘Capacity Based McDelivery‘ by OMD Singapore. To maintain competitive advantages, McDonald’s promoted its delivery service McDelivery in Singapore in partnership with Google. By integrating McDonald’s first-party data with Google’s hyper-local targeting, they maximised media cost efficiency and managed consumer expectations of delivery time through tailored messages, mapping real-time restaurant data against paid search spends via a live API.

Stephen Li, CEO of OMD APAC, said: “To have our work for McDonald’s recognised as best of the best globally, is testament to our unwavering commitment and relentless focus on helping our clients’ leading brands continue to cut-through with data-driven creativity. This recognition motivates us to continue our drive in helping brands make better decisions, faster. The ‘Capacity Based McDelivery’ campaign is the perfect example of this in practice, leveraging real-time data to generate fresh growth for a market-leading brand in a highly competitive category. I could not be more proud of this achievement, and all the other great work coming out of OMD Singapore. It only inspires us to continue raising the bar even further still for our clients.”

In second place is ‘Hungerithm’ by MediaCom Melbourne / Clemenger BBDO, which saw confectionary brand Snickers partner with 7-Eleven stores in Australia to drive sales and increase category share. Snickers says the internet gets angry when it’s hungry. The brand launched ‘Hungerithm’, an algorithm that analysed 14,000 social posts a day and adjusted the price of the chocolate bar accordingly.The angrier the Internet got, the cheaper Snickers became.

Ranked third is ‘Reword’ for Headspace by Leo Burnett Melbourne / Starcom Melbourne. The Australian youth mental health foundation, successfully tackled cyber bullying by putting in place a social media rewording tool that analyses what users type and uses a red line to strike through abusive phrases.

Three themes have emerged from the world’s top campaigns for media excellence:

  • Data is driving fresh media thinking. The top campaign is built around smart use of data. This is a recurring theme in the rankings, as brands look to harness multiple data sources to deliver competitive advantage.
  • An event-led strategy helps brands stand out. As brands struggle to be heard in a fragmented media landscape, there is a growing focus on ‘events’ such as Super Bowl, US Presidential debates, and Olympics, that can draw a crowd and interest from the press.
  • Partnerships are central to youth-focused media strategy. Partnerships with organisations or individuals that bring their own reach are now a key element of media strategy, particularly for brands targeting younger demographics.
MediaCom London claims first place in the Gunn Media 100 agency rankings with four campaigns ranked in the top 100: ‘Best Day Of My Life’ for Shell (#6), ‘Singing Our Way To The Top Of The Box Office’ for Universal Pictures’ Sing (#22), ‘Missing Type’ for NHS Blood & Transplant (#30) and ‘Dark To Light’ for Gucci Guilty (#77=).

PHD New York is in second place also with four campaigns in the top 100. Their highest ranked campaign (#13) is ‘The Debate Headache’ for GlaxoSmithKline’s Excedrin. Mindshare Mumbai is ranked third with three campaigns making the cut.

MediaCom is the top-ranked network with eight agencies from around the world – Auckland, Bogota, Dusseldorf, London, Mumbai, Melbourne, Mexico City, New York – contributing to the network’s poll position. PHD Worldwide is in second place and OMD Worldwide, third.

For the first time Gunn Media 100 has included a ranking of holding companies. WPP tops the leader board, with three of its networks – MediaCom, Mindshare Worldwide and Wavemaker – ranked in the top 10. Omnicom Group and Interpublic Group follow.

Stephen Allan, Worldwide CEO and Chairman of MediaCom, said: “This is an outstanding achievement, of which I am extremely proud. Every single person throughout the MediaCom network has contributed to our success and has truly embraced our philosophy of Systems Thinking to great effect.
 
“I am, of course, delighted that MediaCom UK has also been recognised within the Gunn Media 100 as the top individual agency, which is incredibly well deserved. But none of this would have been possible without our fantastic clients, agency partners and media owners who have collaborated with us to create globally-celebrated campaigns. We are proud to have contributed towards WPP’s achievement of being named the top Holding Company within the same report.”
 
Sir Martin Sorrell, CEO of WPP, said: “WPP’s core purpose is to deliver growth for our clients so we are delighted to receive this recognition of our effectiveness in doing so. And congratulations to MediaCom who, as network and agency of the year, have helped us achieve a hat-trick of awards.”

Nike takes first position as the top brand with four campaigns featured in the top 100, all from the US. McDonald’s is in second place, followed by Snickers and Dove.

Unilever tops the Advertiser’s ranking by a significant margin. Procter & Gamble is in second place. Both advertisers have six brands featured in the top 100 campaigns. Mars takes third place with five campaigns in the top 100.

The US dominates the rankings with 30 campaigns in the top 100, 12 of which feature in the top 20. UK is second with 11 campaigns. Australia and India follow. In total, 24 countries are represented.

The most highly ranked campaigns and companies in Gunn Media 100 are:

 
The world’s top 10 campaigns for media excellence
 

Rank
Campaign title
Brand
Agency
Points
1
Capacity Based McDelivery
McDonald’s
OMD Singapore
136.1
2
Hungerithm
Snickers
MediaCom Melbourne / Clemenger BBDO Melbourne
131.2
 
3
Reword
Headspace 
Leo Burnett Melbourne /
Starcom Melbourne
129.1
 
4
Bachelor Of Shaving
Gillette
MediaCom Mumbai
122.5
5
Bradshaw Stain
Tide
Saatchi & Saatchi New York / Hearts & Science New York
106.1
 
6
Best Day Of My Life
Shell
MediaCom London
105.4
7=
Sport Chek – The Fastest Olympic Campaign!
Sport Chek
Touché PHD! Montreal
 
101.3
 
7=
Bully Ads
Canadian Safe School Network
Touché PHD! Toronto
 
101.3
 
9
Yasmin’s Sex-Ed Revolution
Yasmin
PHD Shanghai
96.7
10
Like My Addiction
Addict’Aide
BETC Paris
87.2

 

The world’s top 10 best agencies for media excellence
Rank
Agency
Location
Points
1
MediaCom
London, UK
317.2
2
PHD
New York, USA
249
3
Mindshare
Mumbai, India
235
4
PHD
Shanghai, China
211.4
5
Mindshare
Shanghai, China
197.4
6
Clemenger BBDO
Melbourne, Australia
184
7
MediaCom
Mumbai, India
174.9
8
Mediaplus
Munich, Germany
171.4
9
Touché PHD!
Montreal, Canada
171.3
10
Starcom
Chicago, USA
169.4
 
The world’s top 10 agency networks for media excellence
Rank
Agency Network
Holding Company
Points
1
MediaCom
WPP
1360.6
2
PHD Worldwide
Omnicom Group
1199.5
3
OMD Worldwide
Omnicom Group
1140.8
4
Mindshare Worldwide
WPP
890.2
5
Starcom
Publicis Groupe
761.1
6
Universal McCann
Interpublic Group
731.1
7
BBDO Worldwide
Omnicom Group
546
8
Wavemaker
WPP
526.8
9
Dentsu Aegis Network
Dentsu
482.2
10
McCann Worldgroup
Interpublic Group
447.1
 
The world’s top 10 holding companies for media excellence
Rank
Holding Company
Points
1
WPP
3565.4
2
Omnicom Group
3326.7
3
Interpublic Group
2131.7
4
Publicis Groupe
1597.3
5
Dentsu
540.1
6
Havas
442
7
MDC Partners
88.6
8
Hakuhodo DY Holdings
65.1
9
Publicis Group
41.4
10
Accenture
17.1
 
The world’s top 10 brands for media excellence
Rank
Brand
Sector
Points
1
Nike
Clothing & Accessories
297.5
2
McDonald’s
Retail
263.7
3
Snickers
Food
227.9
4
Dove
Toiletries & Cosmetics
204.5
5
Netflix
Media & Publishing
194.5
6
Shell
Business & Industrial
180.8
7
Samsung
Technology & Electronics
136.1
8
Headspace
Non-profit, public sector & education
129.1
9
Gillette
Toiletries & Cosmetics
122.5
10
US Army
Non-profit, public sector & education
107.3
 
The world’s top 10 advertisers for media excellence
Rank
Advertiser
Points
1
Unilever
942.7
2
Procter & Gamble
517.6
3
Mars
392.8
4
Nike
283.3
5
McDonald’s
263.7
6
PepsiCo
251.4
7
Anheuser-Busch InBev
217.1
8
Nestlé
195.7
9
Netflix
194.5
10
Royal Dutch Shell
186.5
 
The world’s top 10 countries for media excellence
Rank
Country
Points
1
USA
2841.9
2
UK
1427.5
3
Australia
871.6
4
India
854.8
5
United Arab Emirates
748
6
Canada
684.1
7
China
656.8
8
Singapore
363.2
9
Brazil
345.3
10
Germany
337

 

Commenting on the results of Gunn Media 100, Emma Wilkie, managing director of Gunn Report, says: “Hot on the heels of the recently published Gunn 100 ranking for creative excellence and the WARC 100 index for effectiveness, the newly launched Gunn Media 100 benchmarks media creativity and innovation as well as highlighting media trends based on an independent global analysis.
 
“We’re seeing that the smart use of data, event-led strategies and partnerships that provide new consumer reach are the main themes currently driving the media industry forward offering new and exciting opportunities in the market place.”
 
The full Gunn Media 100 rankings – including the world’s top 100 campaigns for media excellence, top 50 agencies, networks, brands, advertisers, countries and top holding companies as well as commentaries, the work and credits – are available by subscription on www.warc.com/gunnreport.

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