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January 2008 - Strategy Magazine
biz

The (real) best work of the year
As chosen by the folks who did it: P&G, Campbell and Pepsi-QTG

by Mary Dickie
page 14

Heaven knows there's no shortage of awards in the Canadian marketing and advertising industry. But for a marketer, most of them are externally focused, agency-centric and limited to campaign categories. Strategy wanted to find out what marketers thought their best work was - when left to their own devices - and what qualities they're looking to reward.

So, we checked in with some of Canada's big CPG players to get a behind-the-red-carpet perspective on their internal marketing awards. These programs can help senior management identify future marketing leaders, boost morale and provide a way for employees in different divisions to appreciate each other's work. And in companies with global reward programs, they also help to spread the word about innovative Canadian work to colleagues around the world.

Some of the awards are focused on business results and some are purely about creativity, and the prizes range from mere office glory to a trip to the Cannes Lions advertising festival to see what the global competition is up to. We got the scoop on three such programs - at Procter & Gamble Canada, Campbell Company of Canada and Pepsi-QTG Canada - and we found three different approaches.

Procter & Gamble Canada threw a gala shindig at downtown Toronto's Revival nightclub in October to hand out its 10 annual Canadian Business Building Marketing Awards - three for individual excellence and seven for team executions. The company employs 100 marketers working on dozens of brands, including Tide, Pampers, Swiffer, Crest, Gillette, Pringles and Pantene. At the event, they all voted on the team awards, as did the 30 or so agency partners and senior staff members from P&G headquarters in Cincinnati who were in attendance.

The process for the P&G awards, now in their third year, began with the company's six associate marketing directors nominating their best executions in the team categories.

"Our objectives were to inspire, celebrate and reward the organization," explains Chris Laird, associate marketing director, fabric and home care, who helmed the awards process. "We identified all the executions we thought were deserving of recognition - we probably filtered through 60 or 70 across the categories - and had a big session where we rolled up our sleeves and whittled them down to three or four nominees per category."

The shortlisted teams each had two months to collaborate with their agencies on a two-minute video that "brought the idea to life in a creative way," says Laird. At the gala, the videos were introduced by emcee Rajiv Satyal, who worked at P&G headquarters in Cincinnati before moving to L.A. to become a standup comic - and the crowd had two minutes to vote for their favourite entry via text messaging.

"Some of the videos were extremely humourous and creative," says Laird, "and Rajiv is this awesome combination of a really funny guy who knows all the P&G lingo and all the inside jokes. So it's a lot of fun, and a bit competitive because you've got the different brands and business units there."

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