Yahoo Asia Big Idea Chair Awards 2021 Winners Announcement

Yahoo today live-streamed the winner announcement of the “Yahoo Asia Big Idea Chair Awards 2021” (Yahoo Asia BIC Awards 2021) on Yahoo TV. Amidst another year of commotion, the awards celebrated undue creativity in the digital media and advertising industry as the world struggles to stay one step ahead of unprecedented consumption behaviours brought by pandemic-induced lockdowns and social distancing measures.

As an acclaimed regional industry event for 13 consecutive years, the Yahoo Asia BIC Awards 2021 shone a spotlight on marketers and advertisers whose resilience and tenacity continue to inspire audiences and fellow industry leaders.

The judging panel was composed by 22 executive members from trade associations such as IAB Hong Kong, HK4As, The Hong Kong Advertisers Association, Hong Kong Association of Interactive Marketing (AIM), HKMA Digital Marketing Community, as well as renowned industry practitioners from Taiwan and Singapore.

Matthew Chan, Head of Sales, Yahoo Hong Kong & China, said, “In the past years, we’ve seen drastic changes in media-consumption and purchase habits due to global lockdowns and social distancing measures. This brings newfronts to technology development and new opportunities to digital advertising. Among the submission we’ve received, there is a notable trend of adopting ad tech in campaigns, making the ad experiences more fun and engaging. At Yahoo, we continue providing reliable premium news, finance and sports content, also offering full tech stack to advertisers, such as programmatic ad platform, native ad, search marketing, immersive experience and specialized content, to enhance campaign reach and advertising returns.”  

Aside from being the winner of the Hong Kong Big Idea Chair Champion Outstanding Award, AXA China Region Insurance Company’s “Thought Leadership Content Series” campaign swept home three other awards including Outstanding for Best Partnership Strategy and Best Branded Content Campaign plus Merit Award for Best Video Strategy. Ms. Andrea Wong, Chief Marketing and Customer Officer of AXA Hong Kong and Macau said “Insurers have to be even more creative and customer-centric during the new normal of the pandemic. We are continuing to partner with our customers especially during the difficult times. Therefore, we created a timely and relevant information platform hosting our Thought Leadership series. To address consumer concerns around COVID-19, we launched “Ask Dr Chiu" in 2020 featuring our Chief Medical Officer through various Yahoo’s platforms comprising short videos, articles, live broadcasts TV programmes in health topics. In 2021, we extended this Thought Leadership series to go beyond health into wealth management and lifestyle topics by launching “Finance Wiz @Daniel”  and “Smart Living @Kenneth”. This offers our customers a comprehensive suite of information from our in-house experts. We are very pleased that the contents are well-received and more importantly, customers found them useful and engaging.

A Merit Winner of the Hong Kong Big Idea Chair Champion Awards is ITeSHOP, whose “SS21 GIGON Campaign” also took home Merit awards for Best Integrated Solution, Best Use of Emerging Format in Hong Kong and Asia plus an Outstanding Award for Best Media Commerce Campaign. Mr. Lance Tsang, Associate Ecommerce Director of ITeSHOP said, “We want to capture hungry shoppers as the market recovered and reopened in the second half of 2021. Aside from a captivating DOOH campaign across bus shelters, we also produced real-time dynamic product ads that were personalized according to genders and interest of the target audience during the week-long campaign. The results were remarkable: the ads attracted more than 15 million eyeballs during campaign period.”

Another notable winner is American Express International, Inc. whose “#NeverStopExploring” campaign was crowned a Merit award for the Hong Kong Big Idea Chair Champion on top of another Merit Award for Best Innovative Experience and an Outstanding Award for Best Branded Content Campaign. As well, its “American Express Explorer Credit Card” campaign grabbed a Merit award for Best Acquisition Campaign. “#NeverStopExploring" is a phenomenal content marketing partnership with Yahoo Better Me enabled credit card promotional campaign which brings the spirit of ‘never stop exploring’ by linking arms with celebrities like Alfred Hui, Jace Chan and Aga. Exclusive interviews and AR activations (link to Immersive AR experience) show how the trio illustrates their wanderlust and the ways in which they interpret adventure and how they discover the lesser-known hidden gems in the city. Each of the AR experiences and their articles is complemented with a link to credit card application as the ultimate calls-to-action.  Very impressive engagement and card volume growth resulted.

Exploration was admittedly a difficult topic in a year of travel bans, but we still managed to explore with consumers some hidden gems around Hong Kong that were not only inspiring, but also visually impressive on the digital sphere.

Originating from Yahoo! Inc., the Asia Big Idea Chair Awards is a leading event which has travelled around the world, and was launched in Hong Kong in 2009. The Asia Big Idea Chair Awards celebrates all the remarkable advertising campaigns and ideas on Yahoo in Asia throughout the past year.

For the full winner list, please visit the official website: https://yahoo.digitaladvertising.com.hk/bicawards/2021/

‍