Blue Nile wins Stevie for Sudan campaign

Blue Nile Dairy Company and Cicero & Bernay have won an International Stevie Award for their campaign in Sudan. The award was announced at International Business Awards (IBA) 2008 for 'Capo Captures Sudanese Hearts and Minds' campaign.

The IBA is the only international awards programme honouring great performances in business.

Nicknamed the Stevie for the Greek word "crowned", the awards will be presented to winners on September 8 in the Shelbourne Hotel in Dublin, Ireland.

Blue Nile is a subsidiary of DAL Group – Food Division, which markets all its dairy products under the Capo brand and is the principal dairy company in Sudan.

The Capo's campaign was an initiative designed by Cicero & Bernay Public Relations and Blue Nile Dairy Company, to help Capo retain its position as the number one dairy firm in Sudan, increase sales of UHT, or ultra heat treated milk and strengthen brand loyalty.

"In a market ruled by Shariah, where the usual marketing tools often employed throughout the West are not viable, we were forced to find an original promotion that would be effective in this environment," said Capo Sales and Marketing Manager Peter Meiring.

The solution came in the form of internationally renowned Indonesian Yo-Yo champion – Oke Rosgana. Blue Nile brought Rosgana to Sudan in 2006 as part of a travelling festival-cum-road show to promote Capo products. As many Capo consumers have limited resources, involvement in the Yo-Yo Festival was made accessible through the free gift of a Yo-Yo with every four packs of Capo UHT milk.

"To capitalise on this, we recommended using the 2007 Capo Yo-Yo Festival to introduce a bi-monthly video Movie Magazine to be shown in the community as stage one of an overall communications strategy," said Cicero & Bernay consultant Mariko Hall.

The Movie Magazine featured three different segments – entertainment, health education and product promotion building.

Recipients of the Stevie Award were selected from more than 1,700 entries.

Organisations all over the world are eligible to compete in IBA, and can enter in any of the more than 40 categories from Best Multinational Company and Best New Product to Best Corporate Social Responsibility Programme.

International Stevie winners were selected from the list of finalists, which was determined by volunteer judges around the world during two months of preliminary judging.

"Entries to the IBAs grew 65 per cent this year and that illustrates the increasing importance of the awards worldwide," said Michael Gallagher, president of The Stevie Awards.