M&C Saatchi’s Optus Clever Buoy has won the inaugural Special Innovation Can’t Be Contained Gold at the IAB Mixx Awards in New York.

In what was essentially a people’s choice award, Clever Buoy was awarded the gold by the audience of top-tier creatives, marketers, publishers and technologists attending.

Each text-voted his/her favourite following a five minute pitch by each of the three finalists in the category in a first for the 10-year-old awards.

Clever Buoy was voted ahead of the “Oreo Trending Vending” via Mondelez International and DigitasLBi’s ‘Interactive Print’ for Motorola Moto X.

M&C Saatchi was only one of two Australian gold award winners at the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s global night of nights.

M&C Saatchi was presented a 3D printed IAB logo as well as the classic IAB MIXX Awards statue.

The win caps off a huge month of awards for the project that created breakthrough shark detection technology to demonstrate the power of the Optus network.

• Clever Buoy won the inaugural Spikes Asia Innovation Grand Prix in addition to two Bronze Digital Spikes.
• And on October 1, it was selected as Best Ads Interactive Ad of the Week by Guest Judge Bram Holzapfel, DDB + Tribal Worldwide Amsterdam CD.
• It also won two Golds at Kinsale 2014

Read the full IAB Mixx winners list here: 2014 IAB MIXX Award Winners