The race has been run and the winners have crossed the finishing line. Check out the eight winners of the first Ministry Of Sports Marketing Awards.

The Awards were all about encouraging and showcasing innovation and creativity in the Australian sports industry. The event was held at Randwick Racecourse, hosted by James Mathison after the first Ministry of Sports Marketing conference.

Check out the winners:

Innovation in Sports Marketing

Traffik for Samsung SlideLiner

Samsung SlideLiner, a world-first idea that existed somewhere in between sofa, rollercoaster, digital activation, and promotion. What is it? Samsung SlideLiner was an innovative, live sports viewing experience that enabled fans to be exactly where they want at all times – immersed in the heart of the action.

Best Use of Sponsorship in Sport

M&C Saatchi Sport & Entertainment, Sydney for CommBank Cricket Test Series Sponsorship 2015 / 2016

The challenge was to demonstrate that CommBank shares Australia’s community values and spirit through our shared love for cricket. How could we bring CAN to life through Cricket? We recruited our CAN ambassadors, Steve Smith, Brett Lee and Ellyse Perry, to ‘Zinc-Up’ and show how to support the Aussie Team cheering them on to victory on the field.

Best Sports Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Initiative

Gemba Group for Toyota Good For Footy Raffle

The Toyota Good for Footy Raffle – a national grassroots fundraising initiative created with the goal of making it easy for local clubs to raise cash. It ran in ACT, NSW, QLD, SA, TAS, VIC, with a separate raffle held in WA, and aimed to give clubs a new way to raise money without relying on one-off donations.

Best Sports Marketing Campaign

Cricket Australia for Cricket Australia: KFC Big Bash League

The KFC Big Bash League (BBL) has now become a major part of the Australian sporting landscape in just a few short years. The key to the marketing strategy was to ensure we educated target audiences and made the BBL look fun and exciting for the whole family, while also catering for kids and teens who were already BBL fans.

Best Use of Social Media in Sport

Tongue for Audi ICC 2015 Social Media Response Lab

Built inside the MCG, plugged into Channel Nine’s direct feed of the broadcast, and powered by an amalgamation of twelve strategic and creative minds, the Social Lab became the voice for everything ICC.

From the 13th to 25th July 2015, the Social Lab created reactive bespoke content and live gameplay commentary of the International Champions Cup before, during, and after the three heart-stopping matches. Voiced by star-studded ambassadors Mick Fanning, Shannon Bennett, and expert commentary from football personality, Craig Foster.

Best Sports Agency or Organisation

TLA & TEG Live for International Champions Cup Australia 2015, presented by Audi

International Champions Cup 2015 brought the world’s best clubs from the world’s biggest sport to the world’s premier sporting destination. It delivered significant returns for the local economy, sponsors and most importantly, the fans. In its first year the International Champions Cup in Australia was an overwhelming success.

Best Sports Digital Platform

Adrenalian Media for V8 Supercars

The V8 Supercars Championship is renowned as the premier motorsport category in Australasia, with over 1.5 million event attendees each year and a cumulative television audience in 2015 of over 30 million. Adrenalin was engaged to deliver a new Responsive Website Platform to engage users and position V8 Supercars at the forefront of digital within the Australian sporting & major event sector.

Advertising Campaign of the Year Involving Sport

MCN, Network Ten, Unilever and PHD for Lipton Ice Tea “Stay Cool”

Lipton committed wholly to the Big Bash partnership and used it to integrate all components of its marketing and advertising campaign. This was reflected by the redesigned packaging, a brand ambassador, Television Commercials, Outdoor, Digital media, in-store promotions and sampling. Humour was crucial to the success of the advertising campaign as Lipton knew this was how to resonate with Australians.

MCN’s national sports sales director told B&T: “On behalf of all the partners that collaborated on the Lipton “Stay Cool” campaign, including TEN, PHD and of course Unilever, MCN are very proud of this award. This is a demonstration of MCN Sport’s ability to deliver a very successful campaign across broadcast, content, digital and talent integration. The BBL is an outstanding summer product on TEN that allows for thorough client integration and dominate audiences.”

Congratulations to all the winners and a big thanks to the sponsors: