Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), a trade association for online advertising, has announced its creative showcase 9.6 winners. The awards celebrate the cutting-edge creativity and innovation within the online advertising sector. 

“A broad spread of industries and ideas were represented in this round’s winners, showing that great digital creative ideas can work across a wide range of industries,” said Mike Zeederberg, managing director of Zuni and Creative Showcase chair of judges.

First place

Sydney’s Leo Burnett has secured first place in IAB Australia’s Creative Showcase Round 9.6 with its campaign launching Samsung’s Gear VR.

To showcase Samsung’s ability to immerse users in a different world with its virtual reality capabilities, Leo Burnett took a literal approach, setting up a dive shop in Alice Springs, 1200 kilometres from the nearest ocean.

Using Samsung’s Gear VR – connected to the Galaxy Note 4 – visitors to the shop were treated to a shark dive in the middle of the desert, instantly transported to a world that was the polar opposite to the hot and dry landscape beyond the Gear VR. The visitor’s reactions were amazing, and the video that captured them has since been watched more than 1.8 million times on Facebook and YouTube.

Second place

Second place was taken by WiTH Collective for the “World’s Best Fielder” World Cup cricket game created for Fairfax Media.

WiTH Collective’s campaign for the World Cup cricket placed players on the field during live games in a bid to save runs and change the outcome of the game. Real-time data from the Fairfax Live Match Centre chalked up the runs they’d saved, with bonus runs awarded for higher engagement across social media.

Players competed against each other for a $5,000 prize and the prestigious title of “World’s Best Fielder”. The game was a resounding success, played 21,672 times in 107 countries.

Third place

Third place went to SOAP Creative for its “Goal Getter” campaign for ING Direct.

The campaign was designed as a fun way for ING Direct to capture details about people’s goals and then demonstrate how ING DIRECT could help achieve those goals. The site utilised the familiar gender-neutral dot “Lou” to create real-time reactions to the data customers entered. Within three days, entries were 232 per cent of target, with more than 50 per cent of all visitors submitting a personal goal. Existing ING Direct customers were invited to participate in the campaign via tailored EDMs. The data captured about individual goals was then used in personalised follow-up communications.

“When you have an open text field like the Goal Getter site does, it’s kind of great as it feels like it can anticipate pretty much anything you can throw at it. A simple idea that’s beautifully crafted and will net a bunch of interesting data too,” said judge Kieran Ots.

Click here for the creative showcase entries.