Grand prix award goes to supermarket chain Waitrose for its budget range, Essential Waitrose, and government anti-obesity campaign takes best new brand award, as per award announcements from Marketing Society.

Thomas, Waitrose’s marketing director, formulated the strategy and carefully selected name that deliberately avoided using a phrase such as “value” or “basics” for protecting the upmarket brand of the company.

From Guardian.co.uk:

Price said that Waitrose took the recession-defying stance of increasing its marketing budget by 20% last year and took a further £27m hit reducing prices on the Essential Waitrose range. Prices for the range are about 10% cheaper than normal.

“The key thing is that we achieved this without cutting quality,” he added. “We did not short-change customers. We knew we needed to up volume [sales] by 5%, it went up by 17% [on the range], to cover the price reductions.”

The government’s anti-obesity campaign, Change4Life, was named best new brand. Harlequins rugby club won “best marketing on a shoestring”.

Pete Markey, the advertising chief of insurance company More Than, won marketer of the year last year.