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About the MMA SMARTIES Business Impact Index

The MMA SMARTIES Business Impact Index the (“Index”) ranks the marketing industry’s top agencies, brands, advertisers and solution providers who are driving the most significant business impact around the globe through modern marketing campaigns. A proprietary methodology developed in collaboration with WARC – the global authority on advertising and media effectiveness—is used to determine business impact. The methodology analyses the finalist and award-winning campaigns from the prior year’s SMARTIES Awards competitions that occurred across 8 countries, four regions and from the global competition.

I. Eligibility for Inclusion

For the 2021 MMA SMARTIES Business Impact Index, data from the SMARTIES Awards programs announced between September 2020 and May 2021 qualify. Only SMARTIES Awards finalists and winners that have met the approved judging criteria are eligible for inclusion in the Index. Click here to learn about how the SMARTIES Awards are judged.

II. Campaign Scores: Awards Points

To determine the Campaign Scores, Awards Points are assigned to the winning and finalist campaigns determined by an independent jury of brand and agency professionals from each SMARTIES competition globally and regionally as follows:

  • Global Best in Show – 10 points
  • Regional Best in Show - 10 points
  • Gold – 6 points
  • Silver – 4 points
  • Bronze - 2 points
  • Mobile Booster - 1.5 points (LATAM SMARTIES Awards programs only)
  • Finalist - 1 points

Because the regional SMARTIES Awards vary in size, with some regions awarding more individual trophies than others, the number of Awards Points a single campaign can win for a given region is capped at 10 points. However, Awards Points for a campaign win at the SMARTIES Awards Global competition are exempt from the cap since the global competition is the most rigorous and difficult to win.

Example: If a campaign won both a global and a regional award, the regional competition maximum points for that campaign are capped at 10, but with a win from the global competition, a campaign could win up to 20.

III. Campaign Scores: Competition Weighting

Each SMARTIES Awards competition is assigned a weighted score (or Competition Weighting) between 1 and 5. The weighting is designed to assess the competitiveness of each program based on the number of submissions received for a given competition and how much of the global advertising market each competition represents. The weighted score uses WARC's comprehensive ad spend data resources, which include analysis by channel and by geography. Ad spend is also adjusted for purchasing power parities, in order to strip out exchange rate fluctuations to allow for more accurate international comparisons.

IV. Campaign Scores: Calculation

For each competition in which a campaign wins, its Awards Points are multiplied by the Competition Weighting to produce a Campaign Score.

Example: If a campaign wins a Silver award in a competition with a weighting of 3, it will score 12 points (4 Award Points for the Silver x 3 Competition Weighting points for the competition weighting).

If a campaign won more than 10 Awards Points, the cap would apply. Then the capped Awards Points are multiplied by the competition weighting.

Because many campaigns win awards in multiple competitions, a campaign’s final score in the ranking is the sum of all the scores it has achieved in different competitions. Note: In circumstances where the same campaign has been awarded at different competitions under different campaign titles, a generic campaign name has been applied to all of these entries.

V. Rankings: Assigning Campaign Scores to Contributing Organizations

To determine the Index rankings, Campaign Scores are calculated for all eligible campaigns across all SMARTIES competitions, globally and regionally. Once scores are calculated, Award Points are assigned to the organizations behind them – both for contributing agencies and brands. The scores generated for every campaign in the database (not just from the top 100 campaigns) are assigned to both an agency and a brand, enabling the rankings of individual agencies, agency networks, agency holding companies, brands and advertisers.

As with assigning Campaign Scores to a specific campaign (see Section II), there is a cap of 10 Awards Points that a brand or agency can win from a single campaign in a single competition. In addition, the overall Award Points a single brand or agency can win from a single competition is capped at 20. This is because a small number of competitions in the database award a very large number of trophies, making it possible for agencies or brands eligible for those competitions to pick up a lot of points from a single competition. This is unfair to agencies or brands ineligible to enter those competitions (for example, if the competition is in a local market and not open to entries from outside that market).

Example: If the competition in a regional market awards a very large number of trophies, but does not accept entries from outside that market, it’s unfair to agencies or brands ineligible to enter those competitions and would skew the rankings without the cap.

That said, it is very difficult to reach 20 Award Points from a single show so the 20-point cap affects a very small number of organizations in the database. (i.e. a campaign would have to win a Grand Prix, Gold and Silver for multiple campaigns to meet this criteria for the cap).

VI. Rankings: Assigning Scores to Agencies and Brands

When assigning scores to the agencies and brands for use in the ranking, as with Campaign Scores, all Award Points are multiplied by the relevant Competition Weighting. The Campaign Scores across campaigns for a given agency or brand are aggregated together and the total is used to determine rank.

VII. Campaign Locations

The location assigned to individual campaigns is based on the national location of the campaign's primary agency. The location of the primary agency is assumed to be the location of the original strategic insight behind the campaign based on the submission.

VIII. Agency Definitions

Agencies in the database are divided into three broad groups: Creative, Media and Digital/Specialist Agencies – a broad category that includes specialist/digital, direct, PR, brand consultancy and other marketing services. Further to these agency lists are a ranking of solution providers, where the responsible or partner company for a campaign was not an agency.

IX. Database Research

While every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy and completeness of the Business Impact Index, MMA cannot accept liability with respect to errors or omissions. If you notice inconsistencies or errors with the data, please let us know. Rankings are updated periodically in order to correct inconsistencies, errors or omissions.