Foote, Cone & Belding Worldwide’s integrated marketing communications unit, FCB Direct, New York, took away key awards in the direct marketing category at yesterday’s Effie Awards.
FCB Direct won a Gold Effie for its “If Your Passion Is Coffee” campaign for Gevalia Kaffee and a bronze for its John Deere Co. “Heritage” effort.
A Silver Effie was awarded to Manus Direct Response Marketing, Kent, WA, for its latest acquisition mail package developed for adidas America Inc.
Bob Cesiro, senior vice president, group creative director at FCB Direct, said the Gevalia brand had long been associated with free coffeepot giveaways, a strategy left over from its former agency, Wunderman Cato Johnson (now Impiric).
Having had so much success with the client, he said the agency preferred to keep its exact strategy and numbers confidential.
“I will say, though, that we’ve put a lot of energy into rebranding the Gevalia image by re-establishing its European heritage,” Cesiro said. “We’ve also been successful at beating industry controls in all media with the direct marketing mailings, and we’ve produced more DRTV in conjunction with those mailings.”
Candy Stoll, adidas account supervisor, said Manus Direct’s winning campaign was designed to support the adidas youth-oriented marketing efforts despite a virtually nonexistent house file of prospects.
“We basically started from scratch,” Stoll said. “We knew we needed to build a list, so we incorporated a newsletter with promotional giveaways as one of the main components.”
Stoll would not divulge the size of the mailing but said it was targeted to households with athletic and sports-oriented children between the ages of 6 and 12.
“We weren’t really promoting any specific adidas product. What we wanted to do was bring adidas and kids into the same fold with our communications,” Stoll said.
From there, the agency developed a larger house list for future targeted campaigns. Stoll said the acquisition mailings were actually addressed to the parents of the children first, asking in advance if their children could be sent further promotional opportunities.
The Effies bestowed its highest honor, the Grand Effie, upon TBWA/Chiat/Day Los Angeles for the Apple Computer “Think Different” campaign.
The New York American Marketing Association, which sponsors the Effies, presented the awards at the 2000 Effie Awards show in New York.
Other honorees included DDB Chicago and BBDO New York, which tied for the most Gold Effies with three each. They were followed closely by Bates USA; Foote, Cone & Belding; McCann-Erickson; and TBWA/Chiat/Day, each of which received two golds. The three agencies receiving the most Effies overall were Foote, Cone & Belding; McCann-Erickson; and Young & Rubicam, with eight each.
The New York AMA, the largest chapter of the American Marketing Association, founded the Effie Awards in 1968. Full coverage of the Effie awards is posted online at www.effie.org.
