Loeries2018: Pete Case on winning a Grand Prix for 'The World's First Baby Marathon'

In South Africa, we’ve also always traditionally held up the 60-second ‘TV ad’ as the epitome of film craft. It's good to see things changing and other forms of film content being recognised.

It was also wonderful that people really seemed to enjoy the film pieces that we made, as we believed right from the beginning that this would be the secret to turning an interesting idea into something truly memorable. Yes, of course it’s fascinating to see how much distance a seven-month-old can actually cover, but, let’s face it, no one really wants to watch 10 whole minutes of crawling babies, unless it’s extremely entertaining.

And, of course, we were also up against some really great ideas, all of which were beautifully produced and crafted, so, yes, it was a real honour to be awarded the Grand Prix.

Our goal is to make the very best work we possibly can on our real, day-to-day briefs. This was one such brief. As a team, it took us about 18 months of perseverance, but we never gave up. We protected and nurtured the idea (both on client and agency side) through the global approval process, and then we worked really hard to produce it as well as we possibly could.

The key to getting it done: Bravery, trust and a true partnership between agency and client.

Why do you think this campaign was deserving of such a win?

Over the last few years we’ve seen a lot of social experiments and ideas that have been shot documentary-style. As this campaign was technically a scientific experiment (to see how far babies can move in a day), we too could’ve executed it in this typical, serious documentary tone. We, however, purposefully chose to frame it in a more entertaining way because firstly, the campaign needed to feel warm and human like the Huggies brand, and secondly, we wanted to create something completely unique.

We needed to convince moms that Huggies has the best diapers for moving babies. The idea started as all the good ones do, with a great insight: Babies move way more than their parents realise (over 3km a day according to New York University).

We decided to bring this to life in the form of 'The World’s First Baby Marathon' – a highly engaging and entertaining visualisation of a group of 7- to 11-month old babies’ real-time movement data. Data that made the impossible possible: a 21km, real-time, online race between four babies in the comfort of their own homes. An execution which ultimately led to a 28.9% increase in diaper sales.

#Rightmyname was a huge favourite on both nights. It’s a real local insight that stares us all in the face every day, but Nando’s and M&C Saatchi turned an annoyance into a beautiful integrated campaign. We really loved how every element in the campaign was so carefully thought through and considered. From the tactical use of newspaper to the T-shirt designs, everything was done with a lot of love and disciplined simplicity.

Some members of our team judged for the first time this year.

It’s a valuable experience and it shows how important it is to package your work in a way that will break through the clutter. Making the work is half the job, packaging it is the other. As an industry of advertisers and marketers, we also need to lighten up and fight against boring and mediocre ideas. If we don’t fight it, no one will. Stop boring the consumers. Just stop it.

What was your main takeout from Loeries 2018?

As an agency, we will continue to fight for interesting, insightful, cross-discipline ideas that grab consumers’ attention, change behaviour and sell our clients’ products and services.

For more info, go to Behance.net, Kimberly-Clark.co.za, Ogilvy.co.za, and follow @OgilvySA on Twitter and Facebook for updates.