Last night at Covent Garden’s Ham Yard Hotel, the winners of the third annual World Media Awards were announced, as well as a Grand Prix for overall excellence in content-driven campaigns. The objectives of the various company and agency campaigns may have varied, but all were driven by innovation and the desire to benchmark excellence in purpose-driven content.

The culmination of months of hard work and tenacity, the shortlist entries into the World Media Awards 2018 unanimously displayed a commitment to delivering high-quality campaigns to a global audience. Campaigns such as the Barilla Foundation: Food Sustainability Index, entered by the Economist Group and winner of ‘Brand and media partnership’ category won due to its commitment to driving change, even beyond the campaign’s scope.

Delivering a global study on nutrition, sustainable agriculture and food waste, data was collected from 34 countries to highlight best practices and key areas for improvement in relation to the food paradoxes and the main UN Sustainable Development Goals.

The ‘Luxury, lifestyle and fashion’ category winner, Hennessy XO: A New Perspective of the Silk Road, was entered by KR Media France [GroupM]. The luxury cognac brand was praised by judges for its diversity of content and ambitious use of both subject and media, using artistic collaboration and place-based exhibitions to present the cultural history of the legendary East-West trade route.  “It had an elegant approach to tying the Silk Road to the brand which created differentiation from other Silk Road content,” said the judges.

For Wendy Orhan, senior brand communications manager at Shell, the night was especially poignant. It resulted in a win for Shell in the ‘Best corporate influencer’ for its Shell Brand GravityLight & Bedtime Stories campaign, described by the judges as “[Targeting] an ambitious audience of future influencers.  It was a very well thought through strategy, with strong engagement strategies generated by the creative approach.” This was as well as Shell claiming the much-coveted Grand Prix, presented as the final award by Emma Winchurch-Beale, president of the World Media Group and international sales director at the Washington Post.

Orhan says, “The World Media Awards are a fantastic platform for demonstrating the value content offers brands for telling a powerful story that can resonate around the world, whether you are in London, Lagos or Kenya. We were amongst stiff competition with so many fantastic entries this year, so to walk away with the Grand Prix is a real coup, and testament to the amazing work of all the team who worked on this campaign including Gravity Light and MediaCom.”

Winchurch-Beale says, “For all the World Media Group members, great journalism and excellent storytelling, using honest and authentic voices from around the world, are of paramount importance every day.  In fact, as the World Media Group celebrates its 20th anniversary this year, we can say it’s driven us for 20 years! That’s why it’s been such a pleasure this year to see the amazing entries that embody these values, with Shell being a very worthy winner.”

The independent World Media Awards, hosted by the World Media Group, is a strategic alliance of the world’s leading publications. It incorporates such titles as the Economist, Forbes, Fortune, National Geographic and the Wall Street Journal, as well as associate members Rezonence, Smartology and the Smithsonian. As an organisation, the World Media Group commits to raising funds and awareness for Reporters Without Borders, an international organisation that protects free speech in countries in which being a journalist is at best challenging, and at worst life-threatening.

For more from Communicate magazine, follow us on Twitter @Communicatemag