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Mars is 2016 Mobile Marketer of the Year


CEO Grant F. Reid has helmed a banner year for Mars, which is one of America's oldest and largest privately held companies.

In 2016, Mars joined brands such as Apple and Unilever in transitioning superb traditional creative to equally impressive innovations on the mobile front, while also further etching out a claim to one of the most cohesive omnichannel presences in marketing today.

Its M&M brand started off the year with a hot streak, celebrating its anniversary with a series of mobile offerings such as live streaming, Q&As, online voting mixed with television ads and retro packaging for a modern take on classic pop culture.

The brand celebrated its 75th anniversary in a big way with a new interpretation of the classic song "Candy Man," a live debut on Periscope and Tweet written by its iconic Red and Yellow characters. Fans were encouraged engage with interactive content in the form of downloading the new song, voting for the newest product and submitting questions for musicians Zedd and Aloe Blacc on Twitter.

A music video was also premiered on YouTube for "Candy Man," which shows Mr. Blacc and Zedd having to step in for Red and Yellow's failed recording attempt, intercut with classic M&M marketing. The video was then released as a television commercial after its YouTube premiere.


Mobile Retailer of the Year first runner's-up: Netflix
Netflix was a close second this year, leveraging guerilla social media marketing and on site activations that integrated with social channels to promote both its service and the original content hosted on it.

It began the year as one of the first massive companies to leverage advertising on one of the platform's curated Live Stories, hosting promotional content for its original series Jessica Jones. Snapchat users tend to be millennial and tech savvy, broadcasting an interest in exacerbating the cord-cutting phenomenon emerging among the cohort.

It then drummed up excitement for Orange is the New Black's fourth season by leveraging Facebook ads that employ a dating application-like format, enabling users to toggle through lead characters' profiles to find a potential love match.

The program continued Netflix's success in targeting millennials, through the full-screen mobile experience, which mimicked the interface of popular mobile dating applications such as Tinder.