Mower, one of the country’s top independent marketing, advertising and public relations agencies, was awarded the Grand Prix in the 2021 The Drum Awards for B2B held Nov. 18, 2021. The top honor in the international contest was presented for Mower’s omni-channel work, Caring Gene®: Caring is Your Calling, developed on behalf of Iroquois Healthcare Association, which also took the award in the Best Response to Change contest. Another Mower campaign, Bring Your Work to Kids, won in the Best B2B Agency Promotion category.
Both award-winning campaigns by Mower reflected the crucial ability to pivot and adapt amid the pandemic, and leverage a range of specialties, including integrated marketing, recruitment marketing, digital marketing, social media, media planning, out-of-home advertising, and omni-channel content programming. This is the second year running that the Caring Gene® campaign has been honored at The Drum Awards, reflecting a marketing program that continues to evolve and resonate.
The Drum Awards is a global awards program that recognizes best practice, the best companies, and the best people from across the marketing and communications industry. This year’s B2B contest was judged by some of the marketing industry’s most impressive leaders, including senior executives from the likes of Apple, Adobe, Dell Technologies, EY, Financial Times, HubSpot, IBM, Samsung Electronics, and TikTok.
“The work presented at this year’s The Drum awards was remarkable and showed really big thinking—despite the pandemic—from some of the brightest marketing minds around the world,” said Doug Kamp, chief creative officer at Mower. “Taking the top global honor reflects the bravery, resiliency and creativity our team brought to help clients and our own agency navigate the pandemic. The Mower team and our client partners truly outdid themselves, and these awards are a testament to the work and passion that went into both campaigns.”
Details on Mower’s award-winning work follows:
Iroquois Healthcare Association
Caring Gene®: Caring is Your Calling
Awarded: Grand Prix and Best Response to Change
Highly Commended: Best Omni-Channel Campaign
The multimedia Caring Gene® campaign launched in summer 2019 to attract new candidates to job and training opportunities in New York’s long-term care industry. With New York state facing a critical shortage of long-term care workers, Iroquois Healthcare Association turned to Mower’s healthcare marketing experts to attract candidates to thousands of entry-level jobs. It was already netting measurable results when the arrival of COVID-19 in 2020 brought new urgency to the effort. Mower quickly pivoted to a second phase, Caring Is Your Calling, as the state faced an urgent need for healthcare heroes. Drawing inspiration from World War I and World War II recruitment posters, the campaign’s bold messages conveyed the unprecedented nature of the crisis and spurred heroes-in-the-making into quick action, sparking a steady flow of new recruits to search for jobs via the website.
Mower
Awarded: Best B2B Agency Promotion
Highly Commended: Best Internal Company Event
When COVID-19 lockdowns shuttered offices and school buildings across the U.S., Mower aimed to help its employees navigate the challenges of working while parenting from home. Bring Your Work to Kids was an interactive monthlong virtual campaign that included family-friendly crafting challenges and activities, and culminated in an all-agency party for families, including original music, storytelling, and a nature safari. Instagram engagement topped 6% as employees leaned into a new way of connecting with colleagues.
About The Drum Awards
From combating webinar fatigue to managing never-before-seen supply chain disruption, B2B marketers have been overcoming hurdle after hurdle. The Drum Awards for B2B seek to recognize the marketers and companies behind the year’s most dynamic, effective work. A panel of esteemed judges from across the industry evaluated thousands of entries to land on the marketers that infused the most creativity into their business campaigns. The 2021 winners were announced in a virtual ceremony on November 18.
About Mower
Mower is a digitally integrated independent marketing, advertising and public relations agency with professional staff in New York City, Chicago, Atlanta, Boston, Charlotte, Cincinnati, and Buffalo, Rochester, Albany and Syracuse, N.Y. Mower delivers strategic insights and counsel, digital solutions, smart creative and award-winning results to clients in a wide range of industries and service sectors. It has earned top industry accolades from Clio, Cannes and ANA B2 awards and is the only full-service agency ranked in Ad Age, B2B Marketing, PRWeek and Chief Marketer. Mower is part of two global agency networks—thenetworkone and IPREX—as well as the 4A’s.