Slovenian Marketing Association in cooperation with SPORTO Conference presented the awards for the fifth consecutive year. The winners and finalists were chosen by an international expert jury of seven members: Saša Ćirić (Marketing and R&D Director, Frikom), Toby Hester (Head Coach & CEO, Sponsorship Coach), Darko Ivančević (Marketing Director, Zagrebačka pivovara), Mitja Jereb (Strategy Director, Renderspace), Niko Kušar (Head of Marketing Communications, Telekom Slovenije), Uroš Stanić (Marketing Manager, HNK Rijeka) and Špela Žorž (Managing Director, Grey Ljubljana).
“We believe it’s important to recognize and encourage good practices of sponsorships and activation. We have noticed that the entered projects are becoming more and more comprehensive and planned as part of the business and marketing strategy,” noted Tanja Kavran, the executive director of Slovenian Marketing Association. Špela Žorž (Grey Ljubljana) who is familiar with the past competing projects as a member of last year’s jury, emphasized that the quality of entered projects is indeed improving notably. “We’ve been seeing a lot more activation projects, not just communications,” she concluded. As Toby Hester noted, “Sponsorship is a wonderful industry, for which we are duty-bound to motivate and inspire the audience that we seek to influence and change behaviour in. As a marketing industry in this region we must continue to develop and grow our capabilities. SPORTO Awards 2016 is a great demonstration of how this is happening.”
The jury awarded the following projects:
- Winner of SPORTO sponsorship award is Together in a battle: Paralympic athletes and Lidl Slovenia (sponsor: Lidl Slovenia, rightsholder: Slovenian Association for Disabled Sports, Paralympic Committee, entrants: Lidl Slovenija, OMD Slovenija, ZŠIS – POK, Fabulatorij, Mediodrom). The jury commented that the sponsorship was planned in a comprehensive way and connected with the business objectives of the company, and the implementation well done. Additionally, they see added value in raising awareness about disabled athletes.
- The winner of the subcategory SPORTO endorsement award is Smooth Banking (sponsor: Nova KBM, rightsholder: Filip Flisar, entrants: Nova KBM/Pristop). In jury’s opinion, the campaign was well strategically planned, targeted and innovative.
- The winner of the category SPORTO rightsholder award is Slovene Rio 2016 (rightsholder: Olympic Committee of Slovenia), a project that impressed the jury with the expansion of their activities in connection with the Olympic Games throughout the year. Members of the jury particularly praised the establishment of a long-term platform and the value created for sponsors.
- The winner of the category SPORTO media award is Best Mountain Hut 2016 (Siol.net). The project stood out because of its extremely well designed structure, as well as creative and rich content. The jury pointed out that the project had a relatively low budget but managed to create relevant content and reach a wide audience, as well as achieve good results.
- The winner of the category SPORTO digital award is Prijaffise – it’s important to take part! (sponsor and entrant: Jaffa Crvenka, rightsholder: Olympic Committee of Serbia, agency Popular Bruketa&Žinić). The campaign included a loyalty program, and the communication took place in parallel through offline and online channels, with support from partners – PR agency Represent, and digital agency GoDigital. The jury noted that activation was well used and the campaign was extremely well integrated. In addition, the digital campaign followed the defined objectives and has brought excellent results.
Projects from each country of the applicants which received the highest score in the category of SPORTO SPONSORSHIP AWARD are automatically qualified for the competition of the European Sponsorship Association (ESA) in the category “Best of Europe” [2016 ESA Excellence Awards]. The following projects qualified to enter the competition of the best European sponsorships projects in London 2017:
The best Slovenian project: Together in a battle: Paralympic athletes and Lidl Slovenia (sponsor: Lidl Slovenia, rightsholder: Slovenian Association for Disabled Sports, Paralympic Committee, entrants: Lidl Slovenia, OMD Slovenija, ZŠIS – POK, Fabulatorij, Mediodrom)
The best Croatian project: Be the missing part (sponsor: Allianz Zagreb d.d., rightsholder: Croatian Paralympic Committee, entrants: Allianz Zagreb d.d. | Vetturelli d.o.o.)
The best Serbian project: We are the team! Olympic card Rio 2016 (sponsor: Vojvodjanska Banka, part of NBG group, rightsholder: Serbian Olympic Team, entrants: Vojvodjanska banka and DNA Communications d.o.o.)
