The Marketing Society Awards for Excellence judges have the power to bestow an additional prize for leading-edge thinking to a marketing concept that has demonstrated exceptional originality - if the quality of submissions merits it.
The winner must be original and new, as well as having inspired pride among marketers. Depaul UK's iHobo campaign, with its groundbreaking use of push technology, live footage and one-click donations, was a unanimous choice.
Depaul, a homelessness charity for young people, wanted to attract younger supporters. However, 25- to 45-year-olds are emotionally hardened to homelessness, and the charity's budget was only £6000.
Depaul and Publicis London took advantage of the close relationship this target group has with mobiles, along with the possibilities the medium held in terms of depicting homelessness realistically, and developed the iPhone app iHobo.
The app asked users to look after a fictional homeless person for three days, and in a world first, showed real-life footage of the homeless person rather than CGI. It was one of the first apps to use Apple's 'push alert' technology, so iHobo was there 24/7. Alerts were sent when he was hungry or cold, with his health deteriorating if ignored.
The app was also the first to use a 'text to donate' mechanic, which let people add their name to the charity's database. IHobo was seeded with influential technology bloggers, and within a week had reached the top of iTunes' free-apps chart.
The activity achieved an estimated media value of £1.2m, including coverage in national newspapers. The app was downloaded 575,000 times and monthly traffic to Depaul's website increased 59%. It delivered 3700 contacts to its database - 74 times more than previous activity.
The judges praised the 'wonderful single-minded strategy', describing it as 'a Tamagotchi with a conscience'.
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