Barkley, AMC Networks and Major League Baseball are Digiday Content Marketing Awards finalists

By Digiday Awards

Looking back on 2020, virtually every Digiday Content Marketing Award entry spotlighted the remarkable efforts of creative professionals everywhere as they worked with near-impossible scenarios to keep their campaigns in focus across a year of distraction, upheaval and risk.

This year’s shortlist of finalists certainly worked under those conditions last year, but they also took a stance on finding moments of relief and pleasure — from ways to improve our health and environments to gripping entertainment, to the ways we could still celebrate the games we play.

To start with, Barkley is a finalist in multiple categories for this year’s Digiday Content Marketing Awards, including Best Direct Response Campaign for its work with Dairy Queen. The ad agency helped the fast-food company become an arbiter of fall-themed flavors by launching a scented-candle line inspired by Blizzard creations like Snickerdoodle Cookie Dough and Caramel Apple Pie.

Barkley also worked with Planet Fitness to make at-home workouts easier in quarantine. After the pandemic closed the company’s gyms, the agency produced the ‘Home Work-In,’ a series of free, daily workouts on Facebook Live. The Planet Fitness effort earned Barkley nominations for Best Campaign Pivot and Best Use of Real-Time Streaming Video. Barkley is also nominated for its work with Winnebago, Haribo and the Kansas COVID Initiative.

Keeping the treat that is a favorite show — and a boozy tipple — in mind, AMC Networks earned nominations for experiences it produced with Diageo and McDonald’s. The network is up for Best Use of Video and Best Use of Native Advertising/Sponsored Content for the second season of its ‘Bottomless Brunch’ series hosted by ‘Fear The Walking Dead’ star Colman Domingo.

In partnership with Diageo, the network’s AMCN’s The Content Room pivoted the series to a six-week virtual format via Zoom, where Domingo created cocktails and chatted with celebrity friends. The network brought in McDonald’s as the first official sponsor of its ‘The Walking Dead’ focused Twitch channel, working with the fast-food brand to create a co-branded Mad Libs game for fans. The interactive experience is nominated for Best Use of Real-Time Streaming Video and Most Innovative Use of Content.

And Major League Baseball loaded the bases with three nominations — Best Campaign Pivot and Best Branded Content Series B2C for its series ‘Bases Covered,’ created in tandem with agency The Wild. MLB also garnered Most Effective/Measurable Campaign for the league’s own ‘Together On Opening Day’ spot. Each of the three programs were marked by quick thinking as the MLB’s marketing teams and partners had to reconstruct season-start campaigns just as COVID-19 wiped the schedule clean of baseball as we know it.

Working under lockdown, ‘Bases Covered’ became a pre-season companion with celebrities forming their own teams from home and diving into batting, pitching and even ballpark dining with the help of MLB superstars. Similarly, as the first pitch of March 2020 went on hold, ‘Together On Opening Day’ turned to user-generated content from …read more

Source:: Digiday