Lowe Lintas wins top honours at WARC 2015 for Kan Khajura Tesan innovation

The mobile innovation was developed for HUL by Lowe and PHD. WARC has named Lowe Lintas as the No.1 creative agency in the world.

Hindustan Unilever's mobile-led initiative 'Kan Khajura Tesan' has been named the world's best marketing campaign, according to new data from Warc, the global marketing intelligence service.

Warc 100 is an annual list of the world's best marketing campaigns, agencies and brands, based on their performances in effectiveness and strategy competitions. It is a benchmark for commercial creativity, allowing organisations to compare their performance with their peers.

On the list of the year's top 100 campaigns, 'Kan Khajura Tesan', a campaign for Hindustan Unilever developed by Lowe Lintas and PHD in India, bagged the top spot. The campaign reached 'media dark' rural Indian populations with an always-on mobile media channel offering music, jokes and Bollywood content, interspersed with ads. The channel gained 12 million subscribers in less than 10 months from launch, including one million unique callers per month.

Priya Nair, executive director, Homecare, at Hindustan Unilever, says, "Kan Khajura Tesan is a great example of creating branded content using an unconventional medium. It has allowed us to build a platform that creates a two-way connection between brands and consumers. We are only at the beginning of our journey with building mobile as a marketing medium."

Lowe Lintas India was also named the top creative agency.

Joseph George, CEO, Lowe Lintas India, states, "Warc is an organisation we hold in very high regard. And so, this recognition is both extremely satisfying and spurring. We have had a terrific run on creative effectiveness this year across the globe; and all the accolades have further reinforced our belief in the type of work we want to do and believe in."

WPP was the top holding company, ahead of Omnicom Group. BBDO Worldwide was named the number one agency network.

Coca-Cola was the top brand in ranking, beating McDonald's (second) and Mercedes-Benz (third). Meanwhile, Unilever was ranked the top advertiser, ahead of Procter & Gamble. Across the database for 2015, US was the top-ranked nation, ahead of UK which came in second. Australia, India and China made up the rest of the top five.

Elsewhere, Starcom MediaVest Group Chicago was named top media agency, with PHD Mumbai in the second place. 360i New York was top digital agency, followed by R/GA New York.

Mike Cooper, CEO of PHD Worldwide, says, "It's an honour to see that the top two most effective campaigns in the world over the past 12 months are both for work that PHD has carried out for Unilever. Both 'Kan Khajura Tesan' for Hindustan Unilever from PHD in India and 'Real Beauty Sketches' for Dove from PHD International, are examples of how creativity and innovation are at the heart of effective and strategic communications planning."

Louise Ainsworth, CEO of Warc, notes, "These rankings reflect an incredible body of work from across the globe – congratulations to the clients and the agencies which made it happen. Together, these campaigns form an inspirational set of case studies, from which brands and agencies everywhere can learn."

To compile this year's rankings, Warc tracked more than 2,200 winning campaigns from 87 different competitions. It assigned points based on the awards won (for example, Gold, Silver or Bronze), then weighed those points based on the competition's rigour and prestige in the global industry. Warc has developed a proprietary methodology to weigh competitions, based on its own ad-spend data and a global poll of senior planners and strategists.

Warc.com is an online service offering advertising best practices, evidence and insights from the world's leading brands. Warc helps clients grow their businesses by using proven approaches to maximise advertising effectiveness. Its clients include the world's largest advertising and media agencies, research companies, universities and advertisers.