Following our recent Effective Mobile Marketing Awards Ceremony, we are running daily previews of all the winners over the next couple of weeks. Today we look at the winners of our Peoples Choice Awards, chosen by a public industry vote.

Mobile Marketer of the Year: Marc Pritchard, Chief Brand Officer, Procter & Gamble
The chief brand officer at one of the world’s largest advertisers, Marc Pritchard caused massive waves at the start of last year when he demanded better from agencies and ad tech firms, and announced that P&G would be reviewing all of its contracts in an effort to clean up the digital media supply chain. Decrying the lack of efficiency and transparency, Pritchard has continued on his campaign to restore faith in advertising by chasing out the bad actors.

This year, Pritchard announced that P&G had slashed its digital media spending by nearly half by concentrating on efficiency and first-party data, and called for other firms to also rethink their marketing and seek to eliminate some of the touchpoints between them and the consumers they serve. A vocal advocate for bringing marketing in-house, he has also suggested that agencies need to renew their focus on creativity, as well as supporting the fight for gender equality in both content and behind the scenes.

As chief brand officer, there is much more to his role than mobile, but his rallying call has clearly struck a chord with the mobile marketing industry, taking 33 per cent of the vote.

Brand of the Year: Adidas
At the close of last year, Adidas announced that it was closing down its wearable hardware unit, hardly the kind of move that suggests a mobile-first brand, but the closure was part of a strategic shift by the firm towards sports and fitness software. With fitness tracking platforms available under both its Adidas and Runtastic brands, the company focused on providing consumers with hardware-agnostic tools, as well as launching a new mCommerce app.

The firm has also focused on mobile with its advertising, embracing platforms like Snapchat and Pinterest as new ways of reaching consumers. With the World Cup in the summer, the brand used Bitmoji to connect with fans following the tournament, and in the autumn, a new deal with Twitter saw it streaming nationally-ranked high school football teams in the US.
Adidas took the People’s Choice Award for Brand of the Year with 33 per cent of the vote.

Ad or Marketing Tech Platform of the Year: AppsFlyer
One of the world’s leading mobile attribution and marketing analytics platforms, AppsFlyer helps marketers around the world make more informed decisions and run more efficient campaigns. Over the past year, the firm has expanded considerably, opening a new US headquarters in San Francisco’s SoMa district and growing its talent pool to maintain a high level of customer service and technical advantage.

That ambition paid off, with the firm reporting 100 per cent growth and surpassing $100m (£77m) in annual recurring revenues. Its technology is now found in 85,000 apps which are present on 7bn mobile devices around the globe, and the company estimates that it stopped $6.5m a day being lost to a fraud using its anti-fraud solutions, delivering a safer and more transparent experience for its partners in the process.

AppsFlyer took this award with a massive 58 per cent of the vote.

Start-up of the Year: Tide
Founded in 2015, Tide aims to bring the mobile banking revolution to business accounts, with a focus on small and medium-sized enterprises who need to remain agile and flexible. The company enables clients to access simplified invoiced tools for invoicing and accounting, as well as offering easy card control and other features useful for small firms. The offering has proved massively popular, and within a year of launch, Tide was responsible for one in 12 newly-opened business current accounts in the UK.

The company has brought in over $16m (£12.2m) in funding to date from venture capitalists including fintech specialists Anthemis, Creandum, LocalGlobe and Passion Capital, as well as high-profile angel investors like Errol Damelin, Alex Chesterman and William Reeve. The company been a vocal advocate for fintech disruption too, calling for eMoney institutions to receive a more substantial slice of the RBS bail- out fund to encourage competition and challenge the dominance of big banks.

Tide won this category with 37 per cent of the vote.

You can see details of all the winning entries here.