NEW YORK --

A campaign to fight censorship for Reporters Without Borders Germany that uses a popular video game to creatively reach its target audience has won the top prize, the Super REGGIE, in the 2021 ANA REGGIE Awards competition.

The award was presented May 21 at a virtual REGGIE Awards program. A total of 69 Gold, Silver, and Bronze awards were presented to top agencies and brands for the best Brand Activation marketing campaigns of 2020 across 23 different categories.

Created by MediaMonks and DDB Germany, “The Uncensored Library” was designed to overcome strict censorship laws in countries where most media are blocked while also generating interest among young people about press freedom.

The campaign used the computer game Minecraft to bypass censorship, because even in countries where most media is blocked, Minecraft, one of the world’s most popular games with more than 126 million active players per month, is easily accessible.

Censored articles from independent journalists became uncensored “Minecraft books,” available in English and their original language, that can be freely written and read inside the game. For the first time, a video game became a tool to overcome censorship. A campaign website was also created that related the story about the participating journalists and the project’s background.

The campaign’s budget was under $500,000 and the results were impressive: The Uncensored Library reached more than 20 million gamers from 165 countries, many of them suffering under censorship laws. Well-known gaming influencers talked about the project, and the gaming community made more than 400 YouTube videos about it. The effort also resulted in more than 790 news articles with a total media reach of 2.7 billion, and donations for Reporters Without Borders increased by 62 percent, helping them to extend their global fight for press freedom.

Categories in the overall REGGIE competition included experiential, digital/social media, sponsorship, influencer, brand purpose, content, B2B, and age-specific campaigns. The competition included campaigns with budgets ranging from less than $500,000 to more than $40 million.

The contenders for the ANA Super REGGIE Award are determined upon the completion of two rounds of judging, with only a select number of the highest-scoring Gold level cases brought to the Super REGGIE jury for consideration.

The award name, REGGIE, was originally chosen because it symbolizes results by “making the cash register ring” with consumers. The 38th annual Super REGGIE award recognizes the highest level of achievement and is awarded to the “best in class” from the Gold category winners.

More than 300 judges — industry experts at director/VP level or higher — scored entries based on the following criteria:

• Is the strategy in line with the insights and goals?
• What is the level of concept originality?
• How well were the materials integrated and activation executed? (specific to the category)
• How strong were the results, and did they achieve business objectives? (volume/share/profit)
• How well did the activation build the brand and align with the overall brand?

A full list of REGGIE award winners can be found here.

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