After the success of Irish entries in two of the most prestigious categories at last year’s ESA Excellence Awards, it was the turn of the Dutch to dominate proceedings at last night’s ceremony for the 2014 ESA Excellence Awards in London.
In the evening’s grand finale, which saw trophies awarded to the top three Best of Europe nominees for outstanding national campaigns in their respective countries, the Dutch SponsorRingen Awards’ winner, KPN, claimed the prestigious top prize for its Olympic speed skating campaign 2014 (pictured).
The All Ireland Marketing Awards’ winner, Liberty Insurance’s sponsorship of the GAA All Ireland Senior Hurling Championship, collected the trophy for second position. The inaugural Belgian Sponsorship Awards’ winner AB Inbev Jupiler & Red Devils ‘We Are Ready’ World Cup campaign, won third place.
Earlier in the evening, the Dutch beer brand Heineken swept two of the prestigious awards for its #ShareTheSofa UEFA Champions League campaign.,
Heineken won the Multinational Award against a strong line-up including Johnnie Walker, McDonald’s and Standard Life Investments.
In the highly-competitive Social Media category, Heineken’s #ShareTheSofa. also took the top prize, with the McDonald’s FryFutbol campaign receiving the sole Highly-Commended prize on the night.
Organised by the European Sponsorship Association (ESA), the Awards Ceremony took place at 155 Bishopsgate and was hosted by Oli Barrett MBE.
The event attracted guests from across the continent, Ireland and the UK.
Starting off the evening, the ESA award for a member company excelling in Professional Development, a closely contested category, saw Fuse Sport + Entertainment clinching the trophy from those short-listed – The Story Lab and Sport @ WH.
AG BARR, soft drink sponsor of the 2014 Glasgow Commonwealth Games won the coveted Business to Consumer Award in a tight category where KPN, Mars, Papa John’s and The Football League and SSE were short-listed.
Electric Ireland GAA Minor Championships won the Consumer Low Budget Award.
Citroën #DrivenByBeauty won the Business to Consumer/Business – Media category.
In the new Business to Youth category, Kellogg’s Krave beat off competition from DB Mobility Logistics AG, McDonald’s, Vauxhall and Vodafone. In the new PR category, Multipower Sportsfood, ING and Electric Ireland were short-listed but the trophy went to Jaguar for its ‘Keep on Pushing’ campaign.
Against strong contenders in Business to Employee including One DLL, Standard Life Investments and The Big Lunch, supported by Halifax, The McDonald’s EURO Cup 2014 scooped top prize.
For the popular Business to Community Award, 1% FairShare® was presented with a Commendation for Innovation and Cravendale’s campaign for Sport Relief won the trophy. For Community Low Budget, An Post Cycle Series was the winner over Barclays, The Big Positive Weekend and Ulster Bank.
The ESA Excellence Awards are supported by f1 recruitment for the Professional Development Award, Tom Shaw for photography, Awarded2U for the trophies, ICON for branding, and the SportBusiness Group – the publishers of Sports Sponsorship Insider, SPORTO Magazine and Sportcal as media partners.