MediaCom shines at awards

by John Reynolds, Media Week 30-Sep-08, 12:00

LONDON - MediaCom reigned supreme at last week's inaugural Guardian Newspaper Planning Awards, in association with Media Week.

The WPP agency took away a clutch of awards, including the Grand Prix for the launch campaign of Volkswagen's Audi A4, which also won best campaign over £250,000.

Adam Freeman, commercial director of Guardian News & Media and one of the judges, said: "We know which agencies take it seriously and MediaCom entered a lot of times."

MediaCom also took home the prize for best use of newspapers in a multimedia campaign for its work with Universal on Atonement, and won the outstanding innovation in a newspaper campaign award for its "The Fink Tank" campaign for Glaxo-SmithKline's Lucozade Sport.

Sonya Arthur, press director at MediaCom, who manages press for the Volkswagen group, said the win illustrated that press, and not just TV, can launch new products, and claimed that the agency's success was due to hitting its target demographic "at the right time".

She said: "This was testament to our work over the past 12 months. In terms of the Audi A4, it was unique to use press and outdoor instead of TV for the launch. Our insight showed that Audi A4 users were light TV viewers."

Other award winners included digital agency Profero, which won the award for outstanding use of consumer insight in a newspaper campaign for Halifax's campaign for The Sun Expats.

The judges thought the campaign showed a "sensible use of insight, which achieved fantastic results".

Will Phipps, planning director at Profero, said that, on the whole, existing sites for expats tend to be "parochial" and "quite amateur" and that there was a huge gap for a credible offering.

He added that one major difficulty had been "convincing The Sun editorial team about the significance of the campaign".

MediaCom's fellow WPP agency Mindshare won an award for its "Power of Photography" campaign for Ford Mondeo, while Carat picked up an award for its "Greener Partnership" campaign for British Gas.

The judging panel was chaired by Maureen Duffy, chief executive of the Newspaper Marketing Agency.

THE WINNERS

- Best campaign under £250,000

Agency: Mindshare

Client: Ford Mondeo

Campaign: The Power of Photography

- Best campaign over £250,000 and Grand Prix

Agency: MediaCom

Client: Audi

Campaign: Launch of Audi A4

- Outstanding innovation

Agency: MediaCom