VCCP wins at the IPA Effectiveness Awards
We are proud to announce that last night, we won three prestigious awards at this year’s IPA Effectiveness Awards. This follows our winning the IPA Grand Prix for Cadbury in 2022. These accolades highlight the strength of our strategic and creative work across multiple campaigns with our clients.
This year’s award line-up includes:
Silver Award - Single Market Category
We were awarded Silver in the Single Market category for our campaign with Cadbury (Mondelēz International), titled “Stop weeping on the sofa, start gifting with a poster: How Cadbury won Christmas.” This campaign demonstrated how insightful, effective strategies can drive consumer behaviour and deliver measurable business results during the competitive Christmas season.
The paper explains how Cadbury has become the fastest-growing confectionery brand at Christmas by rewriting the rules of festive marketing.1 In a departure from conventional Christmas ad campaigns, Cadbury Secret Santa is a repeatable activation – a ritual of mass participation. The idea transforms the UK’s digital poster sites into Secret Santa post offices, and in doing so, has turned Cadbury’s Christmas comms into the season’s most effective advertising. The idea has (so far) actively engaged 3.4m people and created an average 43% increase in annual Cadbury Christmas sales - generating £80m in additional revenue since launch.
Broadbent Special Prize - Best Dedication to Effectiveness
In addition to our Silver award, Cadbury received the Broadbent Special Prize for Best Dedication to Effectiveness. This award acknowledged the strength of our ongoing, effective partnership with Mondelēz, as well as the long-term, sustained success of our work together.
Bronze Award - Single Market Category
We also took home Bronze for our campaign with Müller UK & Ireland, titled “Out with the new, in with the old: How Müller turned the corner.” This work focused on revitalising Müller’s brand and increasing engagement with its core products, effectively repositioning the brand in the market.
Müller, once in 80% of Britain’s fridges, was sleepwalking out of existence.
Two decades of consistent decline had resulted in the brand losing 20% of its household penetration.
This case documents how advertising helped Müller turn a corner by freshly reimagining the familiar. It shows how we first stabilised and returned Müller’s sub-brands to growth in just two years… whilst building a masterbrand platform to take the brand into the future - delivering an incremental +£44.5m in value and ROI of £2.33 in the process.
It is a story of one of the most unlikely turnarounds in FMCG history.
1- Source: Nielsen. Claim is based on value growth from 2021 (pre-campaign) to end of 2023
2- “Cadbury’s Secret Santa” was judged by Kantar to the most effective Christmas TV ad of 2022 - achieving the best ranking for any Christmas ad for: long term brand building potential, ad distinctiveness and ‘feel-good factor’ since 2019. In 2023, the ad scored even higher and won Kantar’s TV ad with the most emotional connection.
3- Source: Nielsen. The average increase is taken by comparing the average sales value for the two years of the campaign so far with the pre-campaign average of the four years preceding. Additional revenue calculated by comparing total additional sales for the two years of the campaign so far versus pre-campaign benchmark.
