This is a personal experience as Smartson's envoy from the FMCG Retail Awards 2014.

As long as you live and learn, you will understand and know things. One insight I gained during the evening was that it's far from a coincidence that I'm working at Smartson, primarily with brands in the FMCG sector. I am clearly very privileged to be close to the nominated and prized brands and stores, most of them are in mine and Smartson's vicinity.

How about the stores where I live, work or go on holiday?

This year's cheese counter - FlygfyrenNorrtälje

This year's cheese counter - Flygfyren Norrtälje

Cheese counter of the year -Flygfyren Norrtälje.

Green groceries of the year - Sabis Fältöversten top 3.

Check out line of the year - Coop Daglivs.

Meat of the year - Coop Daglivs.

Dairy of the year - Ica Fältöversten top 3.

Fish of the year - Sabis Fältöversten, winner in 2013, presented the award.

And when it comes to brands, it becomes even more clearer - Had we changed Allerum/Skånemejerier to Arla, it could almost be mistaken that Smartson were the organisers for the event?

Supplier of the year -Findus (who launched this campaign) won over Vaasan, who I was rooting for.

Green groceries of the year - Lidl

Campaign of the year - Lidl with Dill

When it comes to this year's campaign, a particularly interesting category for an inquisitive marketer like myself, I spoke a long while with jury member Håkan Sandström. He told me a lot about the work of the jury and what criteria they looked for. For example, that it should inspire others and that it can be repeated while the industry evolves and develops - which is identical with my vision for sharevertising!

The Dill campaign by Lidl are in my eyes brilliant and a very deserving winner of that category. Congratulations to them and it will be fun to follow their continued success.

When it comes to the remaining campaigns, I feel (and I speak for myself here , but there may be some truth in it) that our clients campaigns within the concept of sharevertising, could easily fill place 2-10 and more.

For example Wästgöta Kloster, which got over 15,000 consumers to apply. A full Globen and it's happening week after week with us. It might not be numbers, results and ROI alone that determines the winners of this year's campaign, but if you want to win the consumers love you can find my number at the bottom. ;-)

Årets kampanj - Dill / Lidl, som också vann årets frukt och grönt. Lidl verkar till 10-årsdagen vara riktigt på gång!

Campaign of the year - Dill / Lidl, who also won green groceries of the year. For their 10th anniversary, Lidl is really smashing it!

Glada vinnare på Findus - Årets leverantör.

Happy winners at Findus - Supplier of the year.

Over to PRODUCT OF THE YEAR

There are many winners and for a lot of people the most prestigious prize is Product of the Year. Congratulations to our friends at Di Luca & Di Luca who won with Snackoliver under the brand name Zeta!

Årets stora vinnare på DiLuca & DiLuca!

This year's big winner at Di Luca & Di Luca!

Och utmärkelsen i närbild.

And the award close up.

Our friends at Cloetta, represented by the winner Mats Colak, did the evening's most applauded acceptance speech where he told us how he as a child dreamed of being the world's best football player (he reached div 2) but as an adult, he rather chased the coolest title instead. Now he's the Swedish Champion at Space Manager!

An honorable mention for Sevan as well, Julia Kronlund at Sevan introduced the World's Food Department. Their products were served during the mingle and she took the opportunity to challange her industry colleagues at Santa Maria with something like: “All kudos to Korea Santa Maria, but we see a trend in that people think more carefully about what they eat, and the world's food will be healthier. We firmly believe in all the tasty dips, all the fantastic vegetarian food, actually the whole range that the Middle East offers. We look forward to the next two years!”

Personally, I love those types of goals - if I get a chance I will do my utmost to help reach and exceed that goal!

The evening went very smoothly and before we sat down for dinner, I had a chat with Robert Engman at Fazer. We spoke about the challanges and the opportunities in the confectionary industry. It was kind of funny that he remembered a campaign we did three years ago, which is also a good proof that if you involve a few thousand consumers, it grabs attention internally even at large companies.

Kvällens huvudrätt på rapsgris från Scan. Den har tidigare vunnit testpiloternas rekommendationer när de körde Sharevertising med Smartson. Mitt bord nickade instämmande mellan tuggorna.

The evening's main course of pig from Scan. It has previously won the test pilots' recommendations when they did a sharevertising campaign with Smartson. My table nodded in agreement between mouthfuls.

At the table, I quickly made sure to sit next to a lady as it was roughly 70-30 black-suit-clad gentlemen advantage. And during the evening, it emerged that not only have we lived in the same neighbourhood, we have also been in primary and secondary school at the same time. Undeniably a small world, and thank you for a lovely evening Stina!

A lot of good food and drinks, a great atmosphere between amazing performances by Maria Möller (sorry I'm too young to have listened to all the songs you sang but the bigger and older crowd seemed to know them a lot better) and all the happy winners made it into a lovely evening.

Maybe next time I don't have to sneak home to translate proposals for clients with international headquarters but to show that the dancing shoes I was wearing aren't just fancy, they can also be used…

Build relationships through product sampling

Did the right product win? - FMCG Retail Awards 2014