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The Connies 2019: Global, Posterscope, C4 and PAMCo amongst winners

The Connies 2019: Global, Posterscope, C4 and PAMCo amongst winners

Full photo gallery available here

Mediatel is delighted to announce the winners of this year’s Connies – the annual awards celebrating new advertising, tech and commercial opportunities in the connected market.

This year saw Global named the UK Grand Prix Winner for its outstanding campaign for the Department for Education, “Get Into Teaching”, for which it also won Connected Campaign of the Year.

Meanwhile, Swedish triple-play provider Com Hem was crowned the International Grand Prix winner following a much-deserved win in the Best User Experience category for Com Hem Tv Hub (details below).

“Global delivered an insightful, sophisticated campaign designed expertly to deliver a series of nudges across a well-connected ecosystem,” said chair of the judges and director of Chartroom, Mark Cross.

“The judges were impressed by Global’s commitment to normalise a career in teaching and overcome self-doubt through constant, habitual prompts across each and every possible touchpoint. A brilliant example of behaviour change at its best.”

Elsewhere, The Best Research Project/Initiative saw an impressively wide range of projects, included eye-tracking, camera glasses, data fusion and good old questionnaires.

The Bronze prize was awarded to Thinkbox, which gave camera glasses to members of the public to show how people are using video across multiple screens.

The Silver prize went to Newsworks for its work demonstrating the incremental benefit of advertising placed in quality online environments.

However, the Gold winner was PAMCo – applauded for its delivery of a world-first, cross media measurement system.

“The successful launch of PAMCo was the end product of an ambitious desire to reboot the newsbrand and magazine currency as a truly platform neutral measure of readership in a connected world,” said judge Richard Marks, director, Research the Media.

“The new survey skilfully balances the need for innovation, whilst preserving the credibility and authority of a currency used to trade billions of pounds of advertising.”

In the Best Use of Connected Data category, Channel 4’s ‘Contextual Moments’ won for its development of a product that automated what has historically been a manual and intuitive task.

Created by Channel 4’s Data Science team, Contextual Moments used AI techniques to enable contextual targeting, both automatically and at scale, with the aim to demonstrate that contextual targeting on TV works.

Connected Agency of the Year was awarded to Posterscope after the OOH specialist showed how connected media solutions can be applied across a number of different touchpoints and in places that are often considered unconnected or non-digital.

Meanwhile, Connected Media Owner of the Year, which showcased businesses embracing and pushing the boundaries for connected business behaviour, saw Channel 4 take its second prize of the 2019 competition.

The broadcaster pipped Spotify with its entry, which read as a blow by blow success story of a truly connected media owner.

“Working with connectivity at its heart, Channel 4 has demonstrated how this has made things better for viewers, better for clients and better for Channel 4’s overall business success,” said judge Anne Tucker, head of research & AV, Mediatel.

In the Best Use of Connected Technology category, the judges awarded the prize to 3SS because of its innovative use of voice commands in a multiscreen user interface.

“The speech of television comes to life with their Google Assistant integration with commands such as ‘record this’ and ‘show me action movies’,” said the judges.

“3SS is an excellent example how connected technology can deliver a seamless, engaging user experience across broadcast, VOD and OTT services.”

INTERNATIONAL CATEGORIES

The user experience is one of the most important challenges for any media organisation with a public-facing service and the Best User Experience – All Channels & Platforms (UK & International) category recognises innovation in the UX across TV, video and beyond.

International Grand Prix winner Com Hem took the prize for its “intuitive” UI, which sits on top of the Operator Tier version of Google’s TV ecosystem.

“As more and more operators adopt the Android platform for TV, standing out will become harder,” said the judges.

“Com Hem has set the bar high, finding a difficult compromise between simplicity and the power of the UI. Support of UHD with HDR will satisfy the most demanding of subscribers and further future-proofs the system.”

In the Excellence in Analytics & AI for TV & Video (International) category, Synamedia won the prize for deploying AI to identify password sharers and to offer different approaches to dealing with them for media owners.

The ‘Premium TV’ Award, which celebrates outstanding achievement in the delivery of a premium television service or programming to viewers, saw SlingTV take Bronze, and BBC R&D UHD HDR take Silver.

However, a very strong Amazon Channels was crowned the Gold prize winner.

Finally, The Video Technology Hero (International) category received excellent proposals featuring breakthrough technologies from a wide range of companies from large established players to video tech start-ups.

However, IBM Aspera took the Gold prize for ‘IBM Aspera on Cloud’, while Verimatrix took Silver and Harmonic took Bronze.

M.A.D. Leader of the Year 2019

A unique award selected by the MAD//Fest Advisory Board, the M.A.D. Leader of the Year recognises the marketing, advertising and disruptive tech business leader who has made an exceptional contribution to driving innovation and progress in our industry.

The prize was delivered to Paul Frampton, CEO – UK, & Ireland, hi inc, in recognition of his work adopting new tech, supporting entrepreneurs and championing diversity.

“The level of creativity and innovation for this year’s Connies was truly remarkable,” said Mediatel CEO, Derek Jones.

“The work on display acts as a barometer for the health of the connected ecosystem, and we’re proud to reward it with these unique awards”

“My sincere gratitude goes to everyone for taking part, and I look forward to seeing more great work next year.”

Full photo gallery available here

 

Best Research Project/Initiative

Inskin – Amplify: Planning for Attention
Newsworks – The Value of Quality – SILVER
Thinkbox – The Age of Television – BRONZE
Kinetic – The more you see it, the more you like it
PAMCo Ltd – PAMCo Audience Measurement for Publishers: The new Joint Industry Currency for Published Media – GOLD WINNER

Best Use of Connected Data
Spotify – NCS: Unstoppable Me (National Citizen Service)
Channel 4 – Contextual Moments – WINNER
Manning Gottlieb OMD – Creating a custom algorithm for Clinique – Moisture Surge
Sky & Tesco Finest – Delicious nights in with Sky On Demand

Best Use of Connected Technology
ADYOULIKE – Native Advertising Technology Platform
3SS – New 3Ready Assistant with Cloud-2-Cloud Integration – WINNER
Accedo – Generating artwork using AI with AWS and ITV

Connected Campaign of the Year
Facebook – EE’s Real-time red carpet on Instagram
Sky & Differentology – Emotionally connecting SkyBet with audiences through the power of Social Branded Content
Global, The Media and Entertainment Group – Department for Education, “Get Into Teaching” – WINNER
Grey LDN, WPP & Facebook – UN: The People’s Seat – HIGHLY COMMENDED

Connected Agency of the Year
Manning Gottlieb OMD
Posterscope – WINNER
Total Media

Connected Media Owner of the Year
Channel 4 – WINNER
Spotify

Grand Prix

Global

 

International shortlist

Video Technology Hero

Avid – Avid MediaCentral
IBM Aspera – IBM Aspera on Cloud – GOLD WINNER
Harmonic – End-to-end UHD HDR Solution for Live Sports Streaming – BRONZE
Verimatrix – StreamMark Server-side Watermarking for Premium OTT Video – SILVER


The ‘Premium TV’ Award

Discovery Winter Olympics
Amazon vertical media company
SlingTV – BRONZE
Amazon Channels – GOLD WINNER
BBC R&D UHD HDR – SILVER

Excellence in AI Analytics

ThinkAnalytics – Personalised recommendations across BBC iPlayer and BBC Sounds
NAGRA – NAGRA Insight
Synamedia – Synamedia Credentials Sharing Insight – WINNER
SoftAtHome – AI Addressable TV

Best User Experience

KT (Korea Telecom) – Voice UI System for KT Olleh TV
OnePlace from Canal Digital, supported by 3SS – HIGHLY COMMENDED
Com Hem – Com Hem Tv Hub – WINNER

Grand Prix (International)

Com Hem

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