The Data Driven Insights category has always attracted a brilliantly diverse range of projects and this year’s line-up may be the most impressive yet. The sheer variety of ways in which our agencies gather, mine, analyse, combine, activate and illuminate data is inspirational and exciting. Some entries employ disparate ranges of data sources to develop, create and optimise in real-time whilst others identify and exploit a single insight to create campaigns and activations of pin-point precision and individual impact. However, at the heart of all the entries celebrated by the awards this year is the unique individual whom data helps us to understand, reach and influence.

The Winners and the Highly Commended entries combined innovative thinking and a dizzying array of the most innovative AI, NLP and programmatic technologies available but almost all have the same intent: to make the world and the people around us more understandable and recognisable. From helping clients to better understand how women access and purchase financial services to giving a human face to corruption, data has been invaluable in making the abstract personal and relevant.

The sheer variety of the entries made it impossible to choose a single Crème de la Crème winner. One of our choices, Theraflu AI Map, combined an extraordinary range of data sources with multiple online and offline channels to deliver real-time information about the spread of flu in Russia, providing genuine utility to people where and when they needed it. Our other winner, Thinking Outside the Box, used data to identify a perfect occasion for pet adoption and then used one of the oldest channels available to spread their message using printed boxes. Data is at the heart of both projects but their executions and channels are so different we simply could not choose between two such different yet equally brilliant campaigns.