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player ready...This much we now know about Leo Burnett USA’s creative: If nothing else, it’s deemed to be effective.
Burnett, which seems to be perpetually undergoing some kind of creative reorganization, took home more Effies than any other agency last night in New York at the 2002 Effie Awards handed out by the New York American Marketing Association. It also tied for first with four gold Effies with Boston-based Arnold Communications.
Its 11 Effies topped Young & Rubicam, which garnered nine.
The Effies don’t necessarily honor the hottest creative. It’s what does best in moving the needle in the client’s most important category: sales.
And it’s usually the one national awards show where Chicago agencies do fairly well, thanks to the don’t-rock-the-boat creative that traditionally comes out of Chicago shops.
And for the Kraft Foods of the world (companies that shy away from the creative cutting edge), ads that show growth instead of flash is all that matters.
Ironically, at the end of the night, it was one of Kraft’s rare creative home runs–the enduring Altoids campaign with its quirky “Curiously strong” ads– that gave Burnett one of its golds Wednesday night.
The campaign also continues to be one of Burnett’s bravest to date, despite its longevity.
Burnett also took golds home for Polaroid Corp., the U. S. Army, and H.J. Heinz.
Arnold took home the Gold for Volkswagen Jetta’s advertising as well as Monster.com, Acushnet Titleist Pro V1 and Royal Caribbean International.
It was Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide that came home with the night’s top prize. Its advertising for IBM took home the Grand Effie. Judged as the most effective campaign in 2001, IBM’s e-business campaign helped exceed IBM’s revenue goals by nearly four times.
New to the show this year was the sustained success award, which was given to McCann-Erickson for MasterCard’s “Priceless” campaign.
Among clients, it was Procter & Gamble that took home the most Effies with five, including three golds.
Visa and Martha Stewart were inducted into the Marketing Hall of Fame. Visa, with its “Visa, it’s everywhere you want to be” campaign, won in the classic category for brands originating at least 25 years ago. Martha Stewart won in the category for brands established between five and 15 years ago.
BK promotes global media exec: Looking to strengthen its ties to key alliance partners like AOL Time Warner, Dreamworks, eBay and others, Burger King Corp. promoted Charlie Pacunas to vice president, global media and alliances, reporting dually to Rick Dow, senior vice president marketing programs and sales, and to Chris Clouser, executive vice president and chief global marketing officer. In addition to maintaining his global media role, Pacunas will be in charge of maintaining marketing relationships with key companies. Since McDonald’s Corp. inked a multiyear marketing alliance with Walt Disney Corp., Burger King has been aggressive in courting Disney’s competitors to tie into movies and other media projects.
Mediaedge:CIA nabs Masterfoods print: The New York office of WPP Group-owned Mediaedge:CIA won the $50 million print buying portion of the Masterfoods media account.
NOVO/Giant Step changes names: Bcom3 Group Inc. said that its NOVO/Giant Step interactive marketing company is changing its name to Semaphore. They explain the name this way: “a visual system for sending information by means of two flags.” The operation will continue to be headed up by Kelly A. Rodriques and will be headquartered in San Francisco with offices in Chicago, Detroit, and New York.
On the move: Winnipeg-based Assante Corp. named Harvey Schiller, former Turner Sports president and former executive director of the United States Olympic Committee, president and CEO of its U.S. operations. … Alex Epstein, a former vice president of programming at Orbis Broadcast Group, joined MindSight in Schaumburg as executive producer/development.
Award file: Salvatore Ferrara II, president/chief operating officer of Forest Park-based Ferrara Pan Candy Co., won the 56th annual Candy Industry magazine’s Kettle Award. The award is given out to the manufacturer deemed to have done the most in the last year to advance the industry.
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