McDonald's named 2018 Spikes Asia Advertiser of the Year

McDonald's was today announced as the winner of the Spikes Asia Advertiser of the Year award, which recognises outstanding creative campaigns produced by one brand across Asia Pacific. The award will be presented during the upcoming festival, taking place September 26-28 in Singapore.

Having previously awarded companies including Unilever (2015), Mars (2016) and Samsung (2017), the judging team this year chose McDonald's after the brand's incremental recent successes at Spikes Asia.

McDonald's has won 21 Spikes awards in total since 2015, upping its game last year in particular, when it took home 10 Spikes Asia Awards for six campaigns that ran across three different countries in the region. 

These included: 

• A Creative Effectiveness Gold Spike for the #MacItBetter campaign by DDB Sydney, which created a limited edition 'Big Mac sauce', leading to the highest Big Mac sales in Australian history
• A Media Gold and Siver Spike for 'Capacity Based Delivery' by OMD Singapore, hailed for the way it analysed real-time order volume data to reduce food waiting times
• A Media Bronze Spike for 'Snaplications' by VML Sydney, a campaign that saw McDonald's use Snapchat to recruit new staff for its restaurants. Snaplications also won a Silver Mobile Spike and a Bronze PR Spike
• A Print & Outdoor Craft Gold and Bronze Spike for the five-part 'Loving Bangkok Night' series by TBWA\Thailand Bangkok, which also won a Silver Print & Publishing Spike (see video below)

Nick Rodd, marketing and menu lead of McDonald's Asia business unit, who will accept the award on September 28 at the Spikes Asia Award Ceremony, gave credit to the brand's agency partners and market teams. "They play a vital role ensuring McDonald’s consistently and effectively produces innovative campaigns, great advertising and unified brand communications across the region. We work together to deliver our brand promise of making delicious, feel-good moments easy for our customers. The recognition demonstrates our success in understanding and engaging our customers, which are at the core of all we do."

Joe Pullos, who takes the reins as festival director of Spikes this year, said of the announcement: "McDonald’s has achieved monumental success for their branded communications both here in APAC as well as globally. It’s an instantly recognisable brand that continues to evolve and drive for higher standards in its creativity specifically nuanced for this region." 

Spikes 2018

This year's three-day festival of creativity will take place from September 26-28 at Suntec in Singapore. Confirmed speakers so far include Ajam Samrai, Ogilvy's ASEAN creative head, Lisa Ronson, CMO of Tourism Australia, and Wendy Clark, CEO of DDB Worldwide. Also confirmed are the judges who will head up the juries assessing Asia's best creative work. 

For more information about the festival, including entering work and competitions, visit spikes.asia. 

Spikes Asia is a collaboration between the organisers of Cannes Lions and Haymarket, publishers of Campaign Asia-Pacific.