At this year's Best of Content Marketing Awards (BCM) in Munich, Mercedes-Benz Switzerland was awarded gold in the "B2C - Mobility/Transport/Automotive" category. The prize is considered the most important award for content-driven communication in the German-speaking world.
The prize was awarded to the "Defining Class" campaign, with which Mercedes-Benz presented the vehicle as an intelligent everyday companion - technically sophisticated, emotionally charged and precisely tailored to the target group. The jury particularly praised the combination of visual and technical excellence with a high standard of content.
For "Defining Class", the Swiss national company relied on an integrated communication concept that combined traditional advertising with journalistically prepared content. In addition to TV and online commercials, numerous background articles, portraits and service articles were created - from the brand's perfumer and the developer of the voice assistant to travel tips for families and frequent travelers. The aim of the campaign was not only to generate reach, but also relevance and credibility.
"Modern advertising relies on storytelling with proof points, purpose and emotion. Just snappy headlines with pretty pictures are no longer enough," says Patrick Bossart, Head of Marketing at Mercedes-Benz Switzerland. In fact, according to the company, the content campaign achieved significantly more contacts than the classic ATL campaign - with a lower budget.
The project was implemented together with several partners: Redact was responsible for the concept and content, TeamX for advertising materials and media planning, mBusiness for the online magazine and Qmart for CRM activities.
Every year, the BCM Award recognizes outstanding achievements in content marketing and storytelling. The work is judged by specialist juries of around 200 experts from Germany, Austria and Switzerland - with a clear focus on the quality of content and strategic impact.
Further information on the campaign: www.mercedes-benz.ch/lead-in-intelligence
From social media campaigns to non-profit campaigns, from corporate films to B2B magazines: a total of 93 outstanding content marketing projects in 32 categories have made it onto the shortlist for this year's Best of Content Marketing Awards, giving them the chance to win a gold award at the BCM event in Munich on October 9. Three of them come from Switzerland.
What makes this BCM vintage so special?
"Definitely the range!" says Olaf Wolff, Chairman of the Content Marketing Forum e.V. (CMF), which is organizing the award for the 23rd time. "The shortlist is a colorful mix of media forms, strategic approaches and storytelling approaches. What they have in common is that each project works across channels in some way and addresses its target group in a multidimensional way."
In which categories are Swiss works nominated?
"Two nominations are in the B2C category - for a content campaign and a magazine," reveals Guido Von Deschwanden, CMF Switzerland Board Member. "The third is in the new special award category Best of efficient Creation Excellence and thus represents a real future topic for the industry: How can we achieve creative excellence while working with maximum efficiency?"
Are trends emerging across countries?
"One trend is certainly that the majority of campaign approaches in content marketing now work with social media influencers in some form," says Peter Matz, BCM Representative on the CMF Board. "It is also striking how many content-strong event approaches are in competition. These include content-driven award concepts as well as gaming events in social media."
The shortlist is now available on the BCM website.
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"The BCM Award 2024 is clearly focused on social challenges," says Olaf Wolff, Chairman of the award organizer Content Marketing Forum e.V. ( CMF): "Never before have there been so many submissions that focus on the social responsibility of companies in the form of content marketing."
In this area in particular, numerous entries from Switzerland made it onto the shortlist: "Three of the eight nominations come from the non-profit sector," says Guido von Deschwanden, CMF Board Member for Switzerland. Co-CEO Peter Kruppa adds: "This is great proof that Switzerland is not only home to the outstanding financial communication that has won so many BCM awards in recent years!"
These are the nominees:
The Best of Content Marketing Award (BCM) is the award that highlights the best of the best from all relevant works of content-driven communication in German-speaking countries. The winners of the trophy will be announced on October 8 at this year's Best of Content Marketing event at the German Football Museum in Dortmund. The shortlist is now available for download at bestofcontentmarketing.com.
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At the BCM Awards Show in Berlin last week, 32 Gold Cubes were awarded, crowning the awards day with the presentation of three Grands Prix to outstandingly judged projects. One of them comes from Switzerland: with the "Zürcher Wasserzeichen" (Zürcher Kantonalbank and Hilda Design Matters) the most successful submission of the BCM Award 2023 comes from Switzerland: Gold in the B2C Finance/Insurance category, Best of Print and Grand Prix.
"A really great achievement," says Daniel Kaczynski, Switzerland board member of competition organizer Content Marketing Forum (CMF). "Congratulations also to the other gold winners, who have once again shown that high-quality content marketing is at home in Switzerland."
Gold was also awarded to Ergon Informatik and its "Smart Insights" campaign, Stiftung Schweiz and "The Philanthrophist", and Helsana Versicherungen for its "Guide to Emotions".
"True serial winners with five, six or even more gold cubes for one agency, as we often had them in the past, we don't have this year," comments Peter Matz, BCM commissioner and second chairman of the CMF. The reasons, he says, are the greatly reduced categories since this year, but also many different and new submitters.
Heidiland Tourism can be pleased about a silver award in the category "B2C - Tourism/Travel/Traffic".
"It's great to see that once again this year, some of the works from Switzerland are among the best in our discipline in an international comparison," says Daniel Kaczynski, Switzerland board member of the CMF. In one category, there is even an all-Swiss shortlist: "In B2C Finance and Insurance, no one from the other countries could hold a candle to us."
Who will ultimately go home with the gold award will be announced at the evening award show on October 6 in Berlin - live for the first time in three years.
Outstanding cases on the event stage
The cases will now not be presented at the award show, but already during a one-day event: "At our newly designed Best of Content Marketing event, the name says it all. In workshops, short presentations and a panel discussion, we focus on the projects that have particularly moved, touched or impressed the jury this year," says CMF Managing Director Regina Karnapp, explaining the concept of the day event.
Peter Matz, CMF board member and BCM representative, gives an indication of which cases will be selected: "The courage to address social issues in corporate content was particularly rewarded by the jury this year. We have some impressive cases that stand out and move - and we are very happy to give them a stage."
Whole range of content marketing on the shortlist
Since this competition year, the BCM Award works according to a new category logic (Werbewoche.ch reported). The competition is no longer sorted by media type, but by target groups, target group interests and topic areas. "The shortlist shows that this new logic works and helps us to view and reward content marketing even more holistically," says Olaf Wolff, Chairman of the CMF.
In addition to individual measures and media products, the shortlist also includes comprehensive overall concepts and campaigns that score points for their orchestration and target group- and media-appropriate preparation.
| Project | Category | Publisher | Service provider |
|---|---|---|---|
| Indulgence magazine Aroma | B2B trade | Pistor | Agency Guido von Deschwanden |
| Smart Insights | B2B IT | Ergon computer science | Ergon computer science |
| The Philanthropist | Bellprat Partner | FoundationSwitzerland | Studio Edit (design), Sugimoto Consulting (editorial), Sam Bolleter, Claudia Dutli | Bolleter-Lab (website) |
| Magazine Wine Culture Lake Biel / Spring 2023 | B2C Food/ Drink/ Indulgence | Lake Biel Wine Culture Association | Therefore |
| Security | B2C Finance/ Insurance | Lucerne Cantonal Bank | Agency Guido Von Deschwanden / Polarstern |
| Zurich water sign | B2C Finance/ Insurance | Zurich Cantonal Bank | Hilda Design Matters |
| Helsana Emotions Guide | B2C health | Helsana Insurances | Refinery |
| Apprenticeship campaign for public administration apprenticeships | B2C learning/training | Association of Zurich Municipal and Administrative Professionals VZGV | Therefore |
| Heidiland: More than you think | B2C tourism/travel/transport | Heidiland Tourism | Rob Nicolas |
Source: BCM
The Content Marketing Forum as organizer of the Competition has the BCM undergone a thorough relaunch and has said goodbye to categorization according to individual media types. The award is now sorted according to target groups: B2B, B2C, B2E, Financial Communication and Children & Youth are now the main categories - in some cases further subdivided according to target group interests and industries.
"The focus of the evaluation is on the content and whether it is prepared and placed in an appropriate way to reach the target audience and the goals set with them," says Olaf Wolff, chairman of the CMF. "The choice of medium to reach the target audience is and will remain important, of course, but we are concerned with evaluating communications performance as a whole, not the execution of a singular medium."
The BCM is thus following the development of the content marketing industry: "The radius in which content marketing moves today is much larger than it was a few years ago. There are hardly any single masters any more, we see more and more campaigns and the classification of CM activities in a larger context. The terms of reference and briefings have developed strongly in this direction," explains Peter Matz, BCM Officer of the CMF Board.
Space for individual performance
Outstanding individual creative achievements also find their place in the new BCM: with Art of Storytelling and the four associated sub-categories Data, Film, Reportage and Visual. Sustainability and crisis communications will also be honored - as will strategy and the industry's top talent with the Young Talent of the Year. This year, for the first time, the CMF's NextGen, the panel of young talents in the content marketing industry, is the sponsor for the young talent work.
Submission Tips - February 14 Webinar
"Thanks to fewer categories and more uniform requirements, the submission process has become easier this year," promises Regina Karnapp, CMF executive director. "We have a detailed guideline on this on our website, and anyone who wants to get additional tips is invited to attend the free webinar for submitters on February 14 from 10 to 11:30 a.m."
The most important dates for BCM 2023:
- Submission deadline: February 1 to April 30
- Early reach phase: until February 28
- Publication shortlist: September 5
- Best of Content Marketing. The event - with award ceremony: October 6
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In the year following the 20th awarding of the Best of Content Marketing Awards the organizer Content Marketing Forum e.V. (CMF) has put the competition to the test and completely renewed it: The categories, the evaluation criteria, the event and last but not least the timing - nothing remains as it was at the BCM, at least almost nothing.
"We have increasingly noticed recently that the competition in its original logic and approach simply no longer fits the reality of our now completely changed industry," explains Peter Matz, BCM Officer of the CMF Board, "the radius in which content marketing operates today is much larger than it was a few years ago. There are hardly any single masters anymore, we see more and more campaigns and the classification of CM activities in a larger context. The terms of reference and briefings have developed strongly in this direction."
New categories
The BCM is now taking this into account with a completely new category logic and changed evaluation criteria: "We are focusing entirely on the content and the question of whether it is prepared and placed in a suitable way to reach the target group and the goals set for it," says Olaf Wolff, Chairman of the CMF. Accordingly, submissions are no longer divided according to media, but according to target groups: B2B, B2C, B2E, etc.
"We are now in a position with the BCM to honor any type of content-driven communication - as an overall concept, in campaign form, or as an outstanding medium in its concrete communicative environment," says Matz. This opens up the BCM even more to companies and agencies that do not conduct content marketing as a core business, but rather embedded in the broad field of diverse marketing activities.
"But there's one thing we're sticking to," adds Regina Karnapp, Managing Director of the CMF, "and that's our jury process. It has received top marks in all feedback rounds and will be maintained in its quality and transparency as well as in the professionally balanced composition of the jury."
The most important facts about the new BCM:
- Timing: Submission start date is February 2023, submission period ends April 30.
- Categories: The ten main categories are: Art of Storytelling, B2B, B2C, B2E (each with subcategories), Financial Communication, Children & Youth, Crisis Communication, Sustainability Communication, Young Talent of the Year, Strategy.
- Evaluation criteria: The evaluation criteria focus on the overall concept, content and target group. They can be viewed at any time on the BCM website
- Event: The Best of Content Marketing event in fall 2023 will highlight the outstanding cases of the competition on stage and provide plenty of space for professional discussions and networking
31 different award winners from five countries were delighted to receive the Best of Content Marketing Award 2021 this evening. In an online award ceremony, the Content Marketing Forum CMF presented 57 of the coveted wooden cubes. Three of them went to Switzerland. For the first time this year, the public was also able to vote for their favorite online. The Music and Health project by the Deutsche Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz came out on top in the audience's favor.
As last year, Helsana is one of the Swiss Gold Award winners with its "Gut Guide", designed by Raffinerie. The publication won in the category "Customer Print Magazine B2C Finance / Insurance / Building and Living / Energy / Healthcare / Pharmaceuticals / Chemicals". There was even double gold for Switzerland in the "Customer Print Magazine B2B Retail / Consumption" category: "Driven", the Maxon Group's magazine, designed by Studio Edit, impressed the jury, as did "Aroma - das Genussmagazin" by Pistor, designed by Guido von Deschwanden.
A further nine Swiss projects were awarded silver.
Best of Content Marketing Award 2021
The winners from Switzerland
| Award | Category Shortlist | Title | Publisher | Realization |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gold | Customer Print Magazine B2B Retail / Consumption | Aroma - The pleasure magazine | Pistor | Agency Guido von Deschwanden |
| Gold | Customer Print Magazine B2C Finance / Insurance / Building and Housing / Energy / Healthcare / Pharmaceuticals / Chemicals | Helsana Intestinal Guide | Helsana Insurances | Refinery AG for design |
| Gold | Customer Print Magazine B2B Retail / Consumption | Driven | Maxon Group | Studio Edit |
| Silver | Additional category Corona communication print | "Hello crisis" | viscom / p+c | Basel West |
| Silver | Additional category Corona communication Content Campaign / Strategy & Planning / Employee communication | Comparis Corona Content Campaign | Comparis.ch | Newsroom Team |
| Silver | Reporting Print Sustainability Report / CSR / Integrated Reporting | Denner: Sustainability report 2019 | Denner | Isler Tomasi |
| Silver | Customer Print Magazine B2B Media / Entertainment / Culture / Telecommunications | SMART insights | Ergon computer science | Ergon computer science |
| Silver | Customer Digital Content Platforms | UBS Women`s Wealth Academy | UBS | Farner |
| Silver | Customer Print Magazine B2C Finance / Insurance / Building and Housing / Energy / Healthcare / Pharmaceuticals / Chemicals | SWISSLIFE | Swiss Life Switzerland | Update, Mediaform, mainland, media workshop |
| Silver | Customer Print Magazine B2C Non-profit / Associations / Institutions | Greenpeace Magazine Switzerland | Greenpeace Switzerland | Refinery AG for design |
| Silver | Customer Print Specials and Annuals | escher - Outlook 2021 for entrepreneurs | Credit Suisse | Source Associates, Open up |
| Silver | Customer Print Magazine B2B Non-profit / Associations / Institutions | involved | Swissmem | Studio Edit |
Is content marketing a winner from the Corona crisis? Certainly not the industry as a whole - but parts of it, individual providers, and the basic attitude of non-promotional communication that is able to implement complex topics for companies and communities of interest. The Best of Content Marketing Award 2021 is intended to show how well this has been achieved across the industry and who, in the opinion of an independent jury of experts, has done it best. In an additional category, any submitted project can be entered free of charge for this special award.
Whether the communication took place as an event, magazine, in social media or in the form of a podcast is irrelevant - in the approximately 80 categories of the BCM, every project finds the appropriate classification.
Company departments are addressed as submitters
Europe's largest content marketing competition is once again responding to developments and changes in the market this year and is adjusting the categories: In social media, the spectrum of entries has been further differentiated so that a distinction can now be made between social media campaigns, long-term community management and individual measures.
Likewise in strategy: Here, the competition is responding in particular to the increasing professionalization of content marketing activities on the corporate side. "Content Operations" is the name of the new category, which is intended to be an attractive submission option for corporate departments in particular. This is a topic that represents a major challenge for many companies: the organization of content marketing - be it as a newsroom, be it with the help of tools, be it in-sourced or out-sourced. Whoever solves this task with flying colors has the chance to be the winner of the new category.
Another important topic in content marketing - for companies and agencies alike - is content distribution. It, too, is given more space in BCM. Paid, earned, owned? How do the channels interact and how are the KPIs of a project achieved? In the category "Content Distribution", which is also assigned to the strategy, the best cases for this find their place.
Winning a Best of Content Marketing Award can be used for all marketing and acquisition measures by agencies and flows with an evaluation factor of 2 into the creative ranking of Horizon one.
Was 2020 the year of content marketing? There is a lot to be said for it, because the Corona pandemic placed special demands on corporate communications that were and are difficult to meet with advertising mechanisms. "We have therefore decided to introduce an additional category, Corona Communications, for BCM 2021, in which we will award projects that have mastered the communications challenges of the pandemic in an outstanding way," Peter Matz, vice chairman of the board of the award organizer Content Marketing Forum, was quoted as saying in a statement. Every project that has been submitted in one of the BCM categories and deals with the pandemic in terms of content can additionally be entered for this category free of charge.
Revised categories
As a further innovation in the competition, the BCM team of the Content Marketing Forum has comprehensively revised the submission categories. The main new categories are digital categories such as social media community management and video platforms.
The increasing importance of media in the context of content marketing is taken into account by the new strategy category Content Distribution. In addition, the core disciplines of the competition remain unchanged: Magazines, annual reports and digital content platforms are just as much a part of this as the now established areas of Conferences&Events, innovative technology applications, podcasts and the diverse variants of moving image content.
Implementation also digital in 2021
The BCM team is once again going digital for the 2021 competition: "The digital jury sessions have proven their worth," explains Regina Karnapp, Managing Director of the CMF. "If the Corona situation allows, we will hold jury sessions for the print categories in small groups at different locations. If not, we can reproduce that digitally in the usual quality." The awards ceremony is also planned virtually as an interactive live event.
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Successful with Coop Hello Family: Dreifive.
55 times gold, 165 times silver: At the Best of Content Marketing (BCM), Europe's largest award for content marketing, the Content Marketing Forum (CMF) presented the BCM Awards. 55 award winners from all over Europe were delighted to receive the BCM steel and concrete cubes on the stage of the Hamburg Cruise Center Altona, including six outstanding works from Switzerland. Sixteen Swiss agencies and clients were nominated for the coveted silver awards. Both are record figures from a Swiss perspective. The organizer is the Content Marketing Forum (CMF), the business association of leading content service providers in German-speaking countries with offshoots in Germany, Switzerland and Austria.
The following Swiss projects, agencies and clients received a gold award:
Gomagazine: Agency: Basel West Corporate Communications; Client: IVCG Publications
Mission Nemo: Agency: Swisscontent; Client: Comet Group
My Switzerland: Upgrade your Winter; Agency: Mainland; Client: Switzerland Tourism
Social Media Coop Hello Family: Dreifive (Switzerland); Client: Coop Genossenschaft
Swisslife: Agency: Mediaform Chistoph Grenacher and Festland; Client: Swiss Life Switzerland
What About You: Agency and client: Crafft Kommunikation
At the magazine MySwitzerlandThe magazine, which is produced in close collaboration with the Switzerland Tourism content team, makes full use of the possibilities of magazine design. The jury's verdict: "The award goes to individual and authentic content, a varied and lively magazine. Elaborately prepared sidestories, info-graphics and maps, a careful handling of the typography and a lot of attention to detail ensure inspiration and fun reading here, great format in the hand."
The magazine Swisslife is managed in-house by a chief editor and, following a complete overhaul last fall, pursues strategic content marketing by consistently strengthening its brand positioning. The relaunch focused on strengthening and expanding the analog/digital lead function in the print and digital channels and anticipating changing usage habits. The magazine's mono theme through personalized focus topics and the strengthening of channel suitability through access to diverse shareable content ensures higher reach by having all channels (own media / social media / paid media / viral stories) contribute to performance. In addition, the magazine content also feeds into the company's new "Life Stories" blog. The customer magazine Swisslife, overseen by Mediaform/Christoph Grenacher as project manager and designed by the communications agency Festland, is sent out three times a year in a print run of 120,000 copies in the target languages German, French and Italian; a further 60,000 or so addressees receive a personalized digital newsletter with online-friendly content.
With their strategic approach as well as the campaigns, Marleen Albert, Head of Social Media at Dreifive, and her team have been setting new standards since 2017 at Hello Family on visual storytelling, closeness through Swissness, infotainment and, above all, channel-specific content, always suited to the target group. Colorful and cheerful, like the Hello Family brand, they address target-group-specific topics with high relevance and thus enter into a close and personal dialog with users. Through an exciting content mix, users are picked up and emotionally addressed. With this strategy, Dreifive has built up an active Facebook community and positioned Hello Family as a strong partner for families. Marcel Oppliger, Managing Director at Dreifive, is delighted: "In today's world, people are literally inundated with advertising, which is why content marketing is becoming increasingly important. Because nothing else puts the user with his needs so much at the center. We create exciting and emotional content - content that interests people. That's why the award makes us particularly proud, because it shows that we're focusing on exactly the right things." "We started with social media just over two years ago. With the right strategy, we have already been able to build a large community on Facebook and enter into direct dialog with our customers. With this communication channel, the Hello Family brand is even closer to the customers and thus even more tangible," says Saara Jeisy, Campaign & Social Media Manager at Coop Hello Family.
Gomagazine: It is published by the IVCG International Association of Christian Business People. It aims to show business, political, scientific and cultural leaders that Christian values are important guiding principles in the business world as well as in society. The magazine features leaders who want to inspire reflection. It sets a counterpoint to the hectic world of business, comes across as visually calm but of high quality, and goes into depth in terms of content. In each issue, a key topic is examined from different angles. Editorially, each issue is new territory, which is why fixed sections are largely absent. Long reports, interviews and photo spreads aim to stand out in the fast-moving online news world. A fresh, cultivated language wants to strike a chord with the readership. In the midst of the flood of information from all channels, gomagazin wants to convey a sense of visual calm and tidiness and put the exclusive photographs and illustrations in the right light. The design and scope of gomagazin signal that it is not short fodder, but rather concentrated food. The magazine can be subscribed to and is available at newsstands, airports and hotels in Germany, Switzerland and Austria.
With the "Mission Nemo" the Comet Group has embarked on the journey into the digital future of the company together with its employees around the world. The mission is to make topics such as artificial intelligence, Industry 4.0, robotics, Internet of Things, augmented reality, virtual reality and many more tangible. The cross-channel and interlocking communication strategy engages employees in the journey every two months via a new campaign. At the heart of the activities with the unifying idea of Mission Nemo are the shared experiences that employees have on the road to the future. To stimulate employees' creativity, the company has developed its own visual world. Various figures and symbols form the framework. They have their own identity, tell stories and are brought to life via augmented and virtual reality. In this way, they are a mouthpiece and integrating element between management and employees. The visible result is concrete implementation measures that employees develop in creative processes. In the end, they form the basis for the ongoing further development of digitization in the Comet Group.