#Clio Trophy Spain

[solorally]

Carlos Rodríguez y David Nieto, campeones del Clio Trophy Spain 2023.

La 29º edición del Rallye La Nucía-Mediterráneo concluyó la emocionante edición de la Clio Trophy Spain. Los campeones de esta categoría, Carlos Rodríguez y David Nieto, se llevaron el título en la monomarca de Renault España organizada por Driveland Events, tras obtener una impresionante victoria en la última carrera de la temporada. La pareja andaluza llegó a la ultima cita del trofeo en…

[itracing]

2020 FIA World RX Championship Rivals Revealed

The permanent entry list for the 2020 FIA World Rallycross Championship released today, offering up the tantalizing prospect of a title contest every bit as intense as the season-long skirmish which highlighted the 2019 edition.

The 13 drivers confirmed for all 10 rounds features World Champions, European Champions, title aspirants & young guns poised to shake up the order.

Among the roster of permanent competitors, who will be joined by a number of round-by-round entries at each event, there are drivers representing 8 nations, supported by world-class teams and six manufacturers.

In 2019, after 196 races, including an incident-filled finale, the leading protagonists for the drivers’ title – Timmy Hansen and Andreas Bakkerud – were tied on 211 points. The trophy went to the elder Hansen – courtesy of four wins to one.

So, just when you thought it would be hard to surpass a season-long rivalry which went to the wire in South Africa, along comes a double World RX champion intent of adding further silverware to his ample collection. Welcome back Johan Kristoffersson.

Kristoffersson, the title-winner in 2017 and 2018, rejoins the fray at the wheel of a VW Polo GTI RX for Kristoffersson Motorsport. He is supported by the Volkswagen Dealerteam BAUHAUS.

As for the Hansens, Timmy, the champion in residence, is joined by younger brother Kevin, the former European champion, in a pair of Team Hansen Peugeot 208s in which they will also defend their teams’ championship.

Norwegian Bakkerud links up again with the flamboyant Briton Liam Doran under the Monster RX Cartel banner – the team is being run this year by the French outfit GC Kompetition. This season they have swapped their Audi S1s for Renault Megane RS RXs.

GC Kompetition founder Guerlain Chicherit partners with Lithuania’s Rokas Baciuska in another pair of Renault Clios in the GC Unkorrupted squad. Sweden’s Anton Marklund is in a Renault Megane as the GCK Bilstein entry.

Hyundai is represented by GRX Taneco in the shape of Finland’s Niclas Gronholm and Russia’s Timur Timerzyanov. Gronholm, who recorded two wins in 2019 but missed two rounds due to illness, is expected to challenge strongly for honours as is Timerzyanov, who posted a notable maiden World RX victory at Spa-Francorchamps.

Timo Scheider is joined by team boss Rene Muennich for the German ALL-INKL.COM Muennich Motorsport outfit which will field uprated and improved Seat Ibizas.

Sweden’s Robin Larsson, the 2019 FIA European Champion, steps up to World RX full time and will race an Audi S1 with the JC Raceteknik team.

Apart from the permanent drivers, a number of round-by-round entries will be announced over the coming weeks.

Paul Bellamy, Senior Vice President of Motorsports Events at IMG, the series promoter, said the quality of the permanent entry list highlights the strength and appeal of the FIA World Rallycross Championship, now in its seventh year.

“The 2020 FIA World Rallycross Championship permanent entry list underlines the lure of World RX for both teams and drivers. We thought it would be tough to eclipse the drama and excitement of our 2019 season but if you look at the class of 2020, we have all the ingredients for a rivalry every bit as intense,” Bellamy said.

“Our 2020 line-up is bursting with world-class talent – including two world champions, European champions and multiple race winners.”

The 2020 championship will have 10 rounds over four continents, starting in Spain in April, and including a return to Portugal, a first-time visit to the iconic Nurburgring circuit, and finally concluding in South Africa in November.

[effieworldwide]

Winner Spotlight: “Amigos de Whatsapp” by Cerveza Poker (Bavaria) & DDB Colombia

November 28, 2019

GRAND EFFIE 2019 Effie Awards Colombia

Bavaria Brewery's Poker, a well-known Colombian beer brand, was up against a series of changes affecting the local beer category, not least that consumers were drinking less overall. To reverse a negative start to the year, Bavaria (owned by Anheuser-Busch InBev) & DDB Colombia set out to increase sales by 5% during March 2018.  The brand was able to successfully re-engage its audience by creatively navigating around the no-advertising policy of what had become one of Colombia’s most popular social media apps: Whatsapp.

The result was “Amigos de Whatsapp.” The campaign, launched in March 2018, effectively differentiated Poker in a competitive beer category, achieved a 12.5% sales increase in two months time and went on to win the Grand Effie in the 2019 Effie Awards Colombia competition – the second Grand Effie win for the brand in four years. It also earned trophies in the Promotions (Gold), Beverages – Alcohol (Gold) and New Product or Service (Silver) categories.

We asked the DDB Colombia team for more insight on their winning work. Read on for our conversation with Borja de la Plaza, President & CEO, Jorge Becerra, VP Planning, Natalia Fuentes, Account Director and Miguel Bueno, Senior Planner.

Tell us about your Grande Effie-winning campaign, “Amigos de Whatsapp?” What were your objectives?

DDB: The last few years have been of great movement for the beer category in Colombia. The emergence of new competitors, the impacts of constant tax reforms, the regulations of the new police code, as well as various changes in consumer habits and preferences, have made Poker's leadership threatened from different fronts. Our consumer target are young people who drink less beer every day, which makes us play a game of stimulating their consumption of beer. It is a context in which we have to make them constantly fall in love with the category and with our brand.

Our objective was to reverse a negative start of the year, increasing the sales of the brand by 5% during the month of March 2018.

What was the strategic insight that led to your big idea?

DDB: For years, Poker has positioned itself as the beer of friendship: We have always said that where there are friends, there is Poker. However, due to advertising restrictions, by the beginning of 2018 no brand could be present in the new “habitat” of friendship: WhatsApp groups (82% of people in Colombia use this platform as the main means of talking with their friends).

Friendship is not only alive in bars and streets now. Friends are constantly engaging with each other on Whatsapp.

This leads to a decrease of meetings with each other. Therefore, as a brand that talks about doing whatever it takes for friendship, to encourage their gatherings we had to start where they were: engaging with them using their own language, memes, posts and videos, through the platforms where they are constantly talking to each other.

How did you bring “Amigos de Whatsapp” to life?

DDB: This was a campaign that didn’t give away cars, trips, or money with our beer bottle caps. Instead, our gift was friends who consumers would want to have within their Whatsapp groups.

During the month of March 2018, under the caps of 160 million bottles of our beer, we printed phone numbers that consumers could add to their Whatsapp contacts. Each number had one of 14 different bot-friends with whom people could interact and receive tailor-made content, and which gave them the chance to win different prizes.

We created over 6,000 pieces of content that were distributed throughout the month of the campaign.

How did you know the work worked? What was the most significant or surprising result of the effort?

DDB: By the end of the campaign, Poker reached a sales increase of 12.5%, achieving an increase of 1 point in their market share (that, in this category, translates to 9 million additional US dollars for the brand).

The campaign accomplished over 32 million interactions on one social network, Whatsapp. This is over 1 million daily interactions. This means that we increased our social media traffic by 110,000%, an unimaginable number, as this would have cost 3 million dollars in digital media if we wanted to achieve it on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.

We reached over 7 billion impressions during the month of the campaign, including 28 million views of all of our video content.

We exceeded the regional benchmark for video retention by 200%.

The organic view rate reached over 70%.

We earned over 1,313,000,000 Colombian pesos in free press.

And the most important KPI for Poker, “A beer that I like to share with my friends,” increased to 72.2% during the month of the campaign (from our average benchmark of 62%) -- not only overcoming the national average but establishing a new record for all Bavaria brands.

In the end, we also collected thousands of cellphone numbers from our consumers, strengthening our data base with more information from our clients -- data that we have started to employ in our loyalty and promotional platforms. 

What were the biggest learnings you took away from this campaign?

DDB: In Colombia, the beer category has a large media investment. And it relies on creativity to differentiate brands from each other. This makes it more challenging every time we launch a new campaign.

We have a brand that is not only a leader in sales, but is also best positioned on a communication level. Therefore, any effort we make has to be bold, big, and has to impact the culture of our consumer to become outstanding.

For this campaign, what is most relevant is that we stepped out of the boundaries of communication and did something that was never done before: advertise through a medium that doesn’t allow advertising, Whatsapp, and have consumers become the ones who willingly add our number and start a conversation.

And this was our learning. We have to challenge the “status quo” and come up with different ways to engage with our ever-changing consumer.

This is your second Grand Effie win for Poker (congratulations!). What do you think has been the most significant contributor to this ongoing success?

DDB: We have challenged ourselves as a team of clients and agencies to look at a campaign not only as a business challenge but as something that constantly breaks everyday life for our consumers. This idea, which is talked about by hundreds of brands, really takes the form of action for us. Our campaigns are data-driven, and we constantly look for media innovations. These [Poker] campaigns are a sample of our actions going beyond the speech, and this is the “modus operandi” of our team.

As President & CEO, Borja de la Plaza leads the DDB agencies in Colombia, a group of more than 500 people which he took over in November 2016. During his tenure, the agency became a creative powerhouse, winning the “Agency of the Year” title two times. Prior to moving to Colombia, he was Chief Operating Officer at DDB Latina’s Miami HQ, responsible for Latin America, Spain and the US Hispanic market. Borja was born in Spain, lived in Brazil, Mexico, and the United States – he also holds American citizenship - before moving to Colombia where he lives now with his wife Connie and his dog Rocco.

Jorge Becerra, VP Planning, runs the strategy department at DDB in Colombia. At only 33 years old (13 working at Omnicom), he has been responsible for developing integrated communications strategies for some of the most valuable brands in Colombia and Latin America. Formerly Director of Planning at Sancho BBDO, Jorge is one of the youngest advertising executives in Colombia. In the last couple of years, he and his team have designed some of the most successful strategic platforms in his country (working for clients such as McDonald’s, ABInBev, Avianca Airlines, Quaker, Bayer, LG Electronics, Johnson & Johnson, Casino Group, Pepsi, Huawei, Claro and BBVA). In 2018, he was named by Scopen as one of the ten most admired professionals in the Colombian advertising industry, and he has also been recognized as one of the most influential advertising professionals in Latin America, according to Adlatina magazine. He has won more than 70 Effies, 3 Grand Effies, 2 Cannes Lions, and several other awards such as D&AD, One Show, Clio Awards, London Festival, Wave, El Sol, and El Ojo. He lives with his wife in Bogotá and is a frequent keynote speaker and panelist at private and public forums on best practices in marketing, consumer trends, and innovation.

Natalia Fuentes, Account Director

Miguel Bueno, Senior Planner

Read more posts about Effie Colombia >

[evercohol-blog]

Bodegas El Nido 2010 and 2004 (RP99) High-end trophy #spanishwine from #jumilla , along with its sister #clio are our house favorite. #monastrell #grape dominated, these wines under Juan Gil are full-bodied and high alcohol 15.5%, delivering richness, jam notes and pure sensuality with silky texture and endless finish. #vibrant #elegant #classy #trophy #wine from #spain #wineshop #hongkong #winelover #wineporn #spanishfever #winter #whattodrink #tapas (at Hong Kong)

[solorally]

Dominio y victoria en el retorno de Pepe López y Borja Rozada al SCER en el RallyRACC.

Pepe López y Borja Rozada han logrado una victoria impresionante en la 58º edición del RallyRACC Catalunya – Costa Daurada, en su primera participación en el S-CER (Supercampeonato de España de Rallyes) bajo el equipo Terra Training Motorsport, al volante del Hyundai i20 N Rally2. Click para ampliar Los campeones del 2022 demostraron su destreza al liderar la competición desde la primera…

[solorally]

Victoria de Pepe López y Borja Rozada en el ACtronics Rallye Tierra de Madrid.

Click para ampliar Pepe López y Borja Rozada han vuelto a competir en la CERT – Rallycar, logrando la victoria una vez más. En esta ocasión, lo hicieron conduciendo un Hyundai i20 N Rally2 y formando parte de su nuevo equipo, Terra Training Motorsport. Click para ampliar Como actuales campeones del S-CER , Pepe y Borja dominaron de principio a fin el 4 ACtronics Rallye Tierra de Madrid. Aunque…

[solorally]

Pepe López y Borja Rozada, los más rápidos.

"Comienza la emoción en el Rallye Sierra Morena 2023: Solans y López lideran en la toma de contacto"

La emoción está en el aire en la ciudad de Córdoba, ya que la 40º edición del Rallye Sierra Morena, la primera prueba del Súper Campeonato de España de Rallyes (SCER) 2023 está a punto de comenzar. El evento ha atraído a los mejores pilotos y equipos de todo el país y se espera que sea una carrera llena de acción y emociones fuertes. Click para ampliar El día de hoy se ha disputado el Shakedown…

[solorally]

Cohete Suárez lidera en el ecuador de la primera etapa.

Cohete Suárez lidera en el ecuador de la primera etapa.

El piloto de Pravia Jose Antonio ‘Cohete’ Suárez lidera tras los tres primeros tramos de la primera etapa del Princesa de Asturias al anotarse 2 de 3 scratch posibles. Alejandro Cachón, que ganó el segundo tramo del día es segundo clasificado en la general seguido muy de cerca por el madrileño Pepe López. Los tres primeros clasificados separados por 3.6″ después de los primeros 40 km…

[solorally]

[PREVIO + INFO] 59. Rally Blendio Princesa de Asturias Ciudad de Oviedo.

[PREVIO + INFO] 59. Rally Blendio Princesa de Asturias Ciudad de Oviedo.

La edición número 59 del Rally Princesa de Asturias se celebra este próximo fin de semana en la ciudad de Oviedo con 88 equipos en la línea de salida y será puntuable para el SCER, la TGR Iberian Cup, la Clio Trophy Spain, la Dacia Sandero Cup y la Suzuki Swift Cup. Pepe López y Borja Rozada lideran la clasificación general del SCER tras las dos victorias conseguidas en la primera mitad de la…