The GRANDY, the Best of Show honor topping the International ANDY Awards, was bestowed Wednesday (4/7) night upon Gatorade’s integrated “Replay” campaign out of TBWAChiatDay, Los Angeles. The awards ceremony gala took place at The Times Center NYC.
The GRANDY winner receives a $50,000 cash award and The GRANDY championship ring. The “Replay” concept grew out of the fact that only three in 10 adults over the age of 30 exercise regularly. The campaign was designed to reignite the athletic spark for those in this age group, allowing them to prove that “once an athlete, always an athlete.” The event-driven campaign leveraged Gatorade’s ability to fuel a second chance for high school players to reunite on their teams and replay the biggest high school game of their lives–15 years later. “Replay” originated with an online, five-episode documentary film in spring 2009, followed by a documentary TV series that launched in the fall on Fox Sports Net. In addition, a high-profile publicity push helped to generate 154 million online impressions and widespread word-of-mouth.
“Replay” also scored Gold in a new ANDY category, Earned Media. Production house was Caviar Content. The directing team for Caviar consisted of Kris Belman and Scott Balcerek.
Among the other Gold winners at the ANDYs was Wieden+Kennedy, Portland, Ore., which saw its Nike Livestrong Foundation “Chalkbot” initiative take the Richard O’Reilly Award for public service in the new RESET category for unique thinking and unusual approaches. Chalkbot was one of the key pieces of work contributing to W+K earning SHOOT‘s Agency of the Year honor in 2009 (12/11/09).
Following the Tour de France tradition of chalking the roads with messages of encouragement for riders, Livestrong and the Lance Armstrong Foundation took the concept one step further, utilizing the roads as a huge canvas for chalk messages of hope in the fight against cancer.
Chalkbot messages were seen around the world through SMS, web banners, Twitter and the WearYellow.com website. Over the course of a month, Chalkbot received more than 36,000 messages; thousands were printed during the 13 stages of the Tour de France over several thousand miles during the 25-day event, with more than 4,000 Twitter followers supporting the program.
The agency networks that took home the most awards in the 2010 ANDYs were: JWT, with a total of six awards (two in New York, one each in London, Milan, Shanghai and Santiago); Leo Burnett, also tallying six (two in the U.K., a pair in Chicago and one each for Toronto and Lisbon); Euro RSCG with five (three for BETC Euro RSCG in Paris, and two for N.Y.); TBWA totaling four (two in L.A. which included The GRANDY, and two in Johannesburg); and DDB copping three honors (Stockholm, London and Sao Paulo).
For a full rundown of ANDY winners, log onto www.andyawards.com. The Advertising Club is the facilitating sponsor of the International ANDY Awards.
Google Opens Its Defense In Antitrust Case Alleging Monopoly Over Online Ad Technology
Google opened its defense against allegations that it holds an illegal monopoly on online advertising technology Friday with witness testimony saying the industry is vastly more complex and competitive than portrayed by the federal government.
"The industry has been exceptionally fluid over the last 18 years," said Scott Sheffer, a vice president for global partnerships at Google, the company's first witness at its antitrust trial in federal court in Alexandria.
The Justice Department and a coalition of states contend that Google built and maintained an illegal monopoly over the technology that facilitates the buying and selling of online ads seen by consumers.
Google counters that the government's case improperly focuses on a narrow type of online ads — essentially the rectangular ones that appear on the top and on the right-hand side of a webpage. In its opening statement, Google's lawyers said the Supreme Court has warned judges against taking action when dealing with rapidly emerging technology like what Sheffer described because of the risk of error or unintended consequences.
Google says defining the market so narrowly ignores the competition it faces from social media companies, Amazon, streaming TV providers and others who offer advertisers the means to reach online consumers.
Justice Department lawyers called witnesses to testify for two weeks before resting their case Friday afternoon, detailing the ways that automated ad exchanges conduct auctions in a matter of milliseconds to determine which ads are placed in front of which consumers and how much they cost.
The department contends the auctions are finessed in subtle ways that benefit Google to the exclusion of would-be competitors and in ways that prevent... Read More