The time? Monday 4th February. The place? Sketch, London (amazing loos) and the event? The IAB Creative Showcase Awards 2007 in association with Microsoft Digital Advertising Solutions.
http://advertising.microsoft.com/uk/online-creative-showcase
The awards exist as means by which to exhibit, celebrate and pay testament to the very best digital marketing solutions seen over the last year. Bravery, originality and innovation are all commended across five specific award categories - Best Creative Campaign 2007, the IAB Unthink your Brand Advertiser Award, Agency of the year, the Microsoft Digital Advertising Solutions most Innovative Campaign and lastly the new most Contagious Campaign award, judged by the hardworking editorial team responsible for this very newsletter...
The guest speaker was the eagerly anticipated Miles Beckett - Creative and Executive Producer of the YouTube phenomenon lonelygirl15 and its British equivalent, KateModern. After an introduction from Chris Ward of Microsoft, Beckett took to the stage and spoke in detail about the conception, execution and resultant evolution of his online series.
'We realised that online content could no longer be static - we were interested in experimenting with a transparency and interactivity that would facilitate proper engagement.'
With this in mind, we couldn't help but admire the fact that these observations and insights which are considered cutting edge today, were in fact made over two years ago. Perhaps this explains how lonelygirl15 has managed over 80 million YouTube hits to date...
http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=lonelygirl15
But who won what? We hear you cry...The grand prize of Best Creative Campaign 2007 went to Poke for their fully-integrated Orange Unlimited. We spoke to Nik Roope, Creative Director at Poke about its success, which he attributed to it being 'both a simple, single minded idea and a huge, sprawling canvass of creative possibility. A rich, deep, engaging, playful experience that fits into a one-liner.' Indeed. We were big fans of the never-ending website and have spent many an afternoon since the launch chatting with the ice cream man on the banks of the rainbow river…
The IAB Unthink your Brand Advertiser Award went to Sony for its comprehensive Vaio Online Script Project, starring John Malkovich. If you haven’t already seen this then we fully recommend that you check it out and have a go yourself…
The Agency of the year was awarded to glue London, whose most effective campaigns of the year included Royal Marines - State of Mind, adidas – Impossible Story, McCain - Potato Parade and of course the unforgettable Virgin Trains – Nature Speaks.
Microsoft’s Digital Advertising Solutions most Innovative Campaign award went to Tribal DDB, for its Mid-Life Crises Retreat campaign promoting the Volkswagen Passat. This campaign showed how a clever idea, nicely executed and aimed at precisely the right target audience can have a tremendous effect.
Lastly, we helped Poke do the double by awarding them our most Contagious Campaign award for their Spot the Bull initiative. There are many things that we loved about this online competition to win Glasto tickets, but above all, it was the way in which it provided a sophisticated digital representation of everything quite un-digital – namely cows, mud and rock n’ roll.
Nik Roope summed up the
standard of work on display at the showcase quite succinctly - 'The UK
is a world leader, standing shoulder to shoulder with the best stuff
out there. That said there are still blind spots and weaknesses here so
it's no time to be complacent.' Indeed chaps, afterall, there's next
year's Grand Prix to think of...
source : Contagious Magazine
