2021 GOMAC Winners

Global Winner

From left to right: Eddy Lavallée, Noémie Lespérance-Hudon, Mathilde Barbau

The 2021 Global Winner comes from ESG UQAM in Canada, under the supervision of Professor Harold Boeck. The team worked with Novagrow, a firm that designs and manufactures kitchen counter gardens. The judges were impressed by the effort that went into the project, the ensuing results and the team’s excellence in analytical reasoning. They specifically found that the environmental and market analysis audit was well laid out; the reports were well written and visualized; the objectives were specific, measurable and time-bound; campaign strategies were clear and focused; there was enough evidence in linking the GDS data in the performance analysis; and the insights, arguments and recommendations were sound and based on extensive analysis. The team did an outstanding job in developing effective ads (CTR: 14.42%) that had a low cost (Avg. CPC: $0.53). As a result, their campaigns exceeded the targeted goal by achieving 240% higher sales while spending only 82% of the allocated budget. The team’s campaign eventually had to be put on hold as the rapid increase in sales resulted in their client’s products being out of stock. Reports: Pre-Campaign, Post-Campaign and Google Data Studio.

Regional Winners

Europe Regional Winner

From left to right: Mantas Šulskis, Valentinas Mosteikis, Klaudija Paterebaitė, Laurynas Miknevičius, Lukas Lukauskas.

The Europe Regional Winner comes from Kaunas University of Technology in Lithuania, under the supervision of Professors Elena Vitkauskaitė and Eglė Vaičiukynaitė. The team worked with Kika, the most popular retail chain of pet goods in Lithuania. The judging committee found that the team did an excellent overall job. The pre-campaign report was strong and helped the judges have a good understanding of the direction the team intended to take. It also included a useful analysis of clients and competitors, an excellent outline of tangible goals and how their client’s objectives were linked to the team’s digital marketing strategy. The campaign was based on a multi-platform approach, which included the use of social media. The many optimizations that were performed during the campaign contributed to strong results: 2100 clicks (CTR 24.56%) on the Google Ads component despite a limited budget (€314.98). The post-campaign report presented a compelling story using data and analytics. The recommendations were well thought out, specific, and relevant to their client’s situation. Reports: Pre-Campaign, Post-Campaign and Google Data Studio.

Asia & Pacific/Middle East & Africa Regional Winner

From left to right: Anshuman Dwarkanath, Arjun Shah, Adithya Ajith Nair, Dheer Sanghvi, Jenish Mutta.

The Asia & Pacific/Middle East & Africa Regional Winner comes from FLAME University in India, under the supervision of professor Rohit Tiwari. The team worked with Good Karma, a company that provides a product range of 100% recycled and unbleached paper napkins, toilet tissue rolls, tissue boxes, and kitchen towels. The judges found that the team did excellent work by presenting content that was well organized, based on a solid analysis, included a logical campaign structure, strategy formulation, and regular optimizations. The pre-campaign report demonstrated a good understanding of the market and several judges appreciated the use of a customer journey in conjunction and with the relevant advertising medium for each stage. The team focused their budget on Amazon Advertising and the Google Display Network. The judges appreciated that the post-campaign presented weekly analysis and optimizations. Reports: Pre-Campaign, Post-Campaign and Google Data Studio.

Americas Regional Winner

From left to right: Octavio Cordova, Luis Medina, Carlos Costa and Mérouan Bahl

The Americas Regional Winner comes from ESG UQAM in Canada, under the supervision of Professor Harold Boeck. The postgraduate team worked with Canadian Virtual Hospice, a Web-based platform that addresses palliative care all over Canada and whose mission is to provide support and personalized information about palliative and end-of-life care to patients, family members, health care providers, researchers and educators. The judges found that the campaigns were well planned and were consistent with the use of their targeted personas. Although the implementation was then executed as per planning, frequent optimisations to the campaigns led to important improvements as demonstrated by the upward trending efficiency in account performance and the campaign goals eventually being achieved. The analysis demonstrated the team’s strong understanding of core digital marketing concepts and of Google Ads’ advanced functionalities. Various challenges were identified and briefly discussed, such as having disapproved ads, which lead to specific recommendations moving forward. Reports: Pre-Campaign, Post-Campaign and Google Data Studio.

Honorable Mentions

During the judging process, a few campaigns can be handpicked by our Judging Panel as having demonstrated excellence in regards to a specific digital marketing characteristic. The 2021 GOMAC Committee, after careful evaluation, would like to provide an Honorable Mention to the team from FLAME University in India, under the supervision of Professor Rohit Tiwari, and composed of Vineet Subba, Karishma Bansal, Monali Barua, Palak Kedia, and Purvi Jain. This team’s work stands out and merits a special mention for the quality of their reports. They were well presented, easy to follow, and very detailed. The judges appreciated that they included justified explanations for the use of the different digital marketing strategies, demonstrated a strong understanding of the client’s needs, defined personas, and outlined their customer journey. The post-campaign report included and commented on various key metrics. Detailed explanations were also included of how strategies were implemented and how they impacted performance outcomes. Major changes were discussed followed by good reasoning of how they affected the campaign results. Furthermore, examples of data were used to support the arguments being made.

Finalists

InstitutionCountryProfessorCaptainMemberMemberMemberMember
Indian Institute Of Digital EducationIndiaPrathmesh KavishwarAnand ShindeSwetank SharmaBhavika BudhdeoSakshi Shriwas
FLAME UniversityIndiaRohit TiwariVineet SubbaKarishma BansalMonali BaruaPalak KediaPurvi Jain
European University of FlensburgGermanyBerthold HassAntonia EigendorfSophia MüllerKim Sarah QuistorfCaterina Schaar
Kaunas University of TechnologyLithuaniaElena Vitkauskaitė and Eglė VaičiukynaitėMorta RodalevičiūtėAudra DobilaitėNeringa SadovnikaitėKamilė ŠliažaitėAndrius Tamašauskas
Université d’AngersFranceRonan ChardonneauThéo KekocVictor JaudAlexis HuchonManon HuetMordjane Khalfi
European University of FlensburgGermanyBerthold HassLeóna Bianca VollbehrMara DrescherSven LanerYasmin Twal
Université d’AngersFranceRonan ChardonneauCharlie LaubinFlore Le RouxJuliette Le BailThomas Laborde GanadeAmélie Lepine
Escola Superior de Educação de ViseuPortugalPaulo SilvaTiago PestanaAna TiagoInês CoelhoMaria Paulo
Escola Superior de Educação de ViseuPortugalPaulo SilvaDiana PintoKelly BarrocaSusana Sousa
* Finalists are presented in ranked order

Rankings used in the 2021 GOMAC:

  • Disqualified: Teams that did not adhere to the GOMAC requirements were eliminated from the judging process.
  • Participants: In all, 26 digital marketing professors from Australia, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Greece, India, Italy, Lithuania, Portugal, Saudi Arabia and the United States registered 101 teams (402 students).
  • Nominees: Teams that demonstrated a very strong understanding of digital marketing by developing a solid campaign and its supporting documentation.
  • Semi-Finalists: Teams that demonstrated superior understanding of digital marketing, developed and documented very high quality campaigns. GOMAC regions were determined based on the number of submissions. Neighbouring countries with fewer submissions were grouped together. All Semi-Finalists demonstrated the same overall level of proficiency even though they are classified in separate regions.
  • Finalists: Teams that demonstrated overall excellence in the field of digital marketing. All Finalists demonstrated the same overall level of proficiency even though they are classified in separate regions.
  • Regional Winners: Although each Finalist demonstrated outstanding campaigns, only one team in each region can be declared the Regional Winner.
  • Global Winner: Out of the several nominated teams and outstanding marketing campaigns, the Judging Panel identified that this team designed, executed and presented the best overall digital marketing campaign in 2021.

2021 GOMAC – Full Results

CIDCountryRanking
749-250-4711CanadaGlobal Winner
943-505-7693LithuaniaRegional Winner
242-450-5156IndiaRegional Winner
382-218-8113CanadaRegional Winner
938-071-1247IndiaFinalist
117-297-7400IndiaFinalist
875-211-2494GermanyFinalist
973-441-5396LithuaniaFinalist
305-570-0807FranceFinalist
792-786-2631GermanyFinalist
160-476-3584FranceFinalist
251-211-3878PortugalFinalist
822-745-9603PortugalFinalist
864-296-4629CanadaSemi-Finalist
724-372-0194LithuaniaSemi-Finalist
605-464-4642CanadaSemi-Finalist
413-474-5895CanadaSemi-Finalist
616-763-8868United StatesSemi-Finalist
566-402-5886CanadaSemi-Finalist
512-730-7721ItalySemi-Finalist
685-983-6719LithuaniaSemi-Finalist
979-442-2970CanadaSemi-Finalist
983-371-3966CanadaSemi-Finalist
660-651-0048IndiaSemi-Finalist
765-263-9893CanadaSemi-Finalist
343-499-0846PortugalSemi-Finalist
382-077-8993CanadaNominee
201-546-2264CanadaNominee
506-408-1180FranceNominee
845-723-6478CanadaNominee
492-508-4001IndiaNominee
677-550-5800CanadaNominee
437-667-6856PortugalNominee
848-729-5688CanadaNominee
574-198-9421CanadaNominee
172-271-2192CanadaNominee
758-707-2870CanadaNominee
879-708-7180United StatesNominee
888-635-5642IndiaNominee
560-141-4803GermanyNominee
913-754-0448CanadaNominee
651-718-1194CanadaNominee
498-861-3182CanadaNominee
204-210-9415CanadaNominee
242-801-0474FranceNominee
894-417-1980United StatesNominee
419-867-5630CanadaNominee
289-821-7897United StatesNominee
264-727-7315CanadaNominee
216-677-0572AustraliaNominee
508-883-4750CanadaNominee
886-801-1896IndiaNominee
498-678-9320CanadaNominee
466-205-3337United StatesNominee
397-243-4347Saudi ArabiaNominee
706-831-9223AustraliaNominee
124-385-0066AustraliaParticipant
139-986-9860IndiaParticipant
275-109-1460United StatesParticipant
307-786-5996LithuaniaParticipant
331-206-2115CanadaParticipant
443-815-4042CanadaParticipant
574-198-8421CanadaParticipant
598-729-3713United StatesParticipant
625-850-6433AustraliaParticipant
648-328-6721FranceParticipant
667-627-9088LithuaniaParticipant
700-670-5890PortugalParticipant
771-968-2742AustraliaParticipant
772-039-9591United StatesParticipant
780-923-7778CanadaParticipant
811-064-4847GreeceParticipant
880-113-9910CanadaParticipant
907-239-1003CanadaParticipant
933-920-3484ItalyParticipant
121-797-8545United StatesDisqualified
125-995-6299United StatesDisqualified
205-428-7046IndiaDisqualified
219-163-8695IndiaDisqualified
237-583-6582CanadaDisqualified
273-361-4915United StatesDisqualified
310-852-1944FranceDisqualified
313-513-1923United StatesDisqualified
373-849-7345AustraliaDisqualified
376-138-9956CanadaDisqualified
540-241-8647CanadaDisqualified
558-294-8107PortugalDisqualified
560-009-1776United StatesDisqualified
564-840-2000FranceDisqualified
614-567-7742AustraliaDisqualified
619-041-1808BelgiumDisqualified
630-457-8154CanadaDisqualified
664-826-6495United StatesDisqualified
682-735-8525AustraliaDisqualified
684-459-4893CanadaDisqualified
770-490-6207CanadaDisqualified
830-296-9068PortugalDisqualified
891-327-9727United StatesDisqualified
926-889-5264AustraliaDisqualified
949-970-6711AustraliaDisqualified
961-343-9500CanadaDisqualified
*Nominees and disqualified teams are not order ranked

The Judging Process

A panel of international judges evaluated teams from outside of their own geographic region. Professors that supervised a Finalist did not participate in the 2021 GOMAC Final Judging Panel and, if part of the GOMAC Committee, were removed from further discussions and decisions regarding the judging process. Professors from every GOMAC region participated in the selection for the Global Winner. The GOMAC Final Judging Panel proceeded with a secret ballot vote that was then revalidated by each judge independently. The judging process was supervised by Professor Wojciech Czart, and further validated by Professor Liz Gray. The entire process and results were then certified as authentic by the GOMAC Committee.

A team was ranked as Semi-Finalist or Finalist based on the quality of their campaign and reports rather than by a cut-off based on a predetermined number of teams per rank. Regions can therefore have a different number of Semi-Finalists and Finalists. Having a team reach the rank of Semi-Finalist or Finalist was not influenced by the performance of other competing student teams. These top teams demonstrated a superior understanding of digital marketing and developed and documented very high quality campaigns.

Each top Finalist within each region was then identified as the Regional Winner. The Global Winner was selected among the Regional Winners by the GOMAC Final Judging Panel who also evaluated runner-ups when Global Winner contenders scores were tied. The 2021 GOMAC Organizing Committee would like to remind participants that it is essential that they follow the Challenge guidelines set out under the terms and conditions to be eligible for judging. Otherwise their submission will be disqualified.

The 2021 GOMAC Judging Panel, comprising of 40 digital marketing specialists from around the world, judged the students’ digital marketing campaigns based on each team’s Pre- and Post-Campaign decks and Google Data Studio reports. The Winners were then identified by a 17-judge panel. We would like to thank the following 2021 GOMAC Judging Panel for supporting the 2021 GOMAC Organizing Committee in the judging process:

Members of the 2021 Judging Panel:

The 2021 GOMAC Organizing Committee

The 2021 GOMAC was governed by the Global Online Marketing Academics (GOMA), which comprises Academics from around the world who have extensive experience in digital marketing education. The 2021 GOMAC Organizing Committee included:

  • Harold Boeck, Université du Québec à Montréal, Canada
  • Theresa B. Clarke, James Madison University, Harrisonburg, Virginia, USA
  • Wojciech Czart, Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Poland
  • Liz Gray, Faculty at Fanshawe College, London, Canada
  • Jamie Murphy, University of Eastern Finland, Joensuu, Finland
  • Elena Vitkauskaitė, Kaunas University of Technology, Lithuania.