Distilleri Group takes Silver and two Bronzes at Marketing Excellence Awards 2026

News

ICOM member Distilleri Group has won three awards at the Marketing Excellence Awards 2026, organised by Marketing Interactive on October 1, 2026, recognising work by its Singapore team for three very different clients:

Silver, Excellence in Urban Guerrilla Marketing: “Cooling Off Day” for Three Legs Cooling Water (Wen Ken Group)
Bronze, Excellence in AI-Powered Storytelling: “For the Good Kind of Aiyahs” for GXS Bank
Bronze, Excellence in Customer Engagement: “We’re in a Pickle” for McDonald’s

The AI-powered storytelling award carried extra weight for the agency. Distilleri was up against established international networks with proprietary AI tools, bigger production resources and much larger budgets. “To have our work recognised in that category was especially encouraging,” said Junren Xiao, General Manager, Distilleri Group, “and a reminder that resourcefulness and strong creative thinking can still make a difference.”

All three campaigns took something people already knew well and found an unexpected way to make them care about it. Each one was built on a human insight, given a fresh creative expression and tied back to a clear business objective, and each one depended on clients willing to try a less conventional idea.

Cooling Off Day: a heritage brand joins the election conversation

Three Legs Cooling Water has been a household name in Singapore for nearly 90 years. Like many heritage brands, though, it risked being seen by younger audiences as a remedy for their parents’ and grandparents’ generation.

There was no brief behind this campaign, and Distilleri hadn’t even been appointed by Wen Ken Group yet. When Singapore’s General Election was announced, the team saw an opportunity in Cooling-off Day, the day political campaigning stops ahead of an election, giving voters time to reflect. Ironically, it’s also when political conversations tend to get most heated, and it fitted the brand’s long-standing role in combating body heatiness (a traditional belief about excess heat in the body).

Distilleri pitched the idea, the client agreed, and the team turned it into a live activation within 48 hours, producing the campaign materials overnight. The result was the “Minister of Cooling”, a tongue-in-cheek politician campaigning not for votes but for everyone to stay cool. On 2 May 2025, the Minister and his entourage held a three-hour mock rally at Raffles Place, in Singapore’s central business district. They came complete with banners, placards and leaflets, and handed out free bottles of Three Legs Cooling Water. The stunt was then amplified across Instagram, TikTok, Facebook and YouTube.

With just S$100 (about US$78) in paid media, the activation generated, within 24 hours:

A 3,000% increase in organic views
131 times more organic engagement
576 organic shares and 62 saves

For the Good Kind of Aiyahs: a more human way to talk about borrowing

Personal loans are a crowded category. Most brands compete on interest rates, promotions and features, and borrowing still carries a stigma. GXS Bank wanted to build awareness of and applications for FlexiLoan, its personal loan product, while making it feel more relatable and less intimidating.

Distilleri started from a simple observation: nobody wakes up wanting a loan. They wake up with a situation that might need one. The team found a word that captures those moments for Singaporeans: Aiyah. It can express frustration when something goes wrong, or reassurance when comforting someone. The campaign told stories that moved from a bad Aiyah to a good one, with FlexiLoan helping people through life’s unexpected challenges and opportunities.

The idea and storytelling framework came from the team. Generative AI then helped extend it across scenarios, audiences and formats, developing visuals, refining creative treatments and producing animation. The campaign grew to six key visuals, around 80 static assets and three animated videos, with new stories added as it ran. Work that would traditionally have needed several days of shooting and post-production could be developed and refined much faster.

“For us, AI didn’t replace the creative idea. It allowed us to do more with it,” said Junren.

The results:

87 million awareness impressions, 52% above target
5,532 FlexiLoan sign-ups, 12% above target
Loan disbursal value up 2.85 times on the previous quarter
Click-through rates 85% higher than in Q4 2025

We’re in a Pickle: turning a small disagreement into a national debate

The Double Cheeseburger is one of McDonald’s best-known products. In a market full of new flavours and promotions, though, even an old favourite can fade into the background. The brief was to bring attention back to a product everyone already knew inside out, strengthen brand love and drive sales.

The insight was that people have surprisingly strong opinions about pickles in their burgers. McDonald’s teased that pickles might be removed from the Double Cheeseburger, then invited Singaporeans to pick a side: #TeamPickle or #TeamNoPickle. Polls, memes and content for both camps kept the debate going on social media. A limited-time $6.90 Double Cheeseburger meal tied the conversation back to sales.

The campaign ran in Singapore in April 2025, mainly on McDonald’s Instagram, TikTok and Facebook channels, and took less than two weeks from teaser to final announcement. In the end, 62% voted to keep the pickles. The results:

15,900 organic votes on Instagram, 100 times the usual feed poll performance
Organic reach of 201,000, more than double the average monthly reach
Earned media coverage from outlets including Singapore news site Mothership and radio station 98.7FM
A 43% increase in Double Cheeseburger sales after launch

Good ideas aren’t necessarily dependent on the size of your team or your budget

Junren Xiao, General Manager, Distilleri Group shared: “What’s encouraging about these wins is that they recognise three very different approaches to solving brand challenges. As an independent agency, we’ve always believed that good ideas aren’t necessarily dependent on the size of your team or your budget. And with AI changing how creative work is developed and produced, I think that’s becoming even more relevant.”

Ultimately, it’s about understanding the problem, finding an interesting way to solve it, and having clients who trust you enough to try something different.

What’s next

2026 has been a big year for Distilleri, which officially opened Distilleri Malaysia in July. The agency has also recently secured a regional business win as it works towards growing beyond Singapore and working more closely with clients and partners across markets.

Congratulations to the Distilleri team from all of us across the ICOM network.