NEW YORK — The Interactive Advertising Bureau joined the ranks of organizations eager to salute interactive agencies and marketers for outstanding online campaigns with Tuesday night's ceremony for the Online Media, Marketing and Advertising Awards.
The awards come in the middle of Advertising Week, a celebration of the industry's contribution to the economy.
Nine categories were awarded, judged by senior executives from Johnson & Johnson, Volvo Cars of North America, Ernst & Young, ING, Classmates.com, Colgate-Palmolive, Reebok International and JP Morgan Chase & Co.
Kicking off the well-attended ceremony at the Hudson Theater in Times Square, Beyond Interactive's “M&M's The Great Color Quest” campaign for Masterfoods USA won the gold for brand awareness and positioning. Deep Focus' effort for Miramax Films' “Kill Bill Volumes 1 and 2” took the silver.
In the direct response category, mOne's “Ameritrade Last Market Hour” campaign for Ameritrade won the gold OMMA. Range Online Media's “Spice Up Your Space” online-to-offline push for Pier 1 Imports snared the silver.
Venables, Bell & Partners' “It's Coming Back” campaign for Napster took gold in the product launch category. Nurun's “True Match Super-Blendable Foundation Launch” for L'Oreal Paris won the silver.
For purchase intent, Eidoserve's “RoboDemo Campaign” for Macromedia won gold. Cramer-Krasselt's “On Going Campaign” for AirTran Airways got silver.
In public service/not-for-profit, e-tractions' “Oreo” campaign for client True Majority took gold. Marstellar Advertising's “The New Color of Money” campaign to introduce the new $20 bill for the Treasury Department bagged silver.
A special recognition in innovation and creativity award was presented to Finland's Nokia for its “First Mobile Snowball Ever” campaign. The agency was given only a $3,000 budget.
The first IAB Lifetime Achievement Award was given to Rich LeFurgy, principal of Archer Advisors and venture partner of WaldenVC. LeFurgy, in his acceptance speech, expressed optimism about the Internet business, expecting online ad revenue to reach $10 billion this year.
“In the next 10 years, I'm betting on the Internet because I truly believe the best is yet to come,” he said.
Best in show went to Venables, Bell & Partners' entry for Napster, once the largest illegal online distributor of copyrighted music. As marketer of the year, the OMMA judges chose Apple iTunes, the largest legal online seller of music.
