6.22.2008

Media Plan of the Year

It's that time of year again. That's right - Media Plan of the Year Awards! This is the time that I get to "oohhh" and "ahhh" over campaigns that do it right. Sure, my plans are effective and clients are happy (knock on wood), but these award winners are doing stuff that is truly remarkable. My two favorites:

Category: $10 - 25 million, Winner: Carat
Client: Reebok
My first favorite is this amazing campaign for Reebok. Reebok's campaign is basically a rebrand that makes Reebok the shoe of choice for "running easy." They advocate running for the shear pleasure of the sport rather than for the intense challenge. Pretty much the total opposite of Nike. Some sample creative:

















Reebok put advertising anywhere that runners could possibly come across it. The best part was that the creative for the campaign was really tailored to the media. For example, San Francisco outdoor media told runners that, “These hills will chew you up and spit you out. Run Easy.” How relevant! No easy feat to coordinate media and creative in such a detailed way. But here's the kicker - I'm a pretty big runner - and I never saw any of this! I'm actually disappointed about it. What a missed opportunity. Apparently they never read my post about race day goodie bags.

Category: Best Use of Print, Winner: Maxus
Client: Welch's Grape Juice
This one is really innovative because it allows the consumer to taste the grape juice before they buy because, really, does anyone over 10 drink grape juice?


















These ads resulted in a 10% sales increase - pretty sweet! Uh, pun intended.

To read about the other winners, click here.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I not sure that I personally like the Reebok ads (I am more of a Nike Train Hard and conquer person), but they are catchy. I noticed your post on Girl Scouts Run for the Cookies, my wife is the Director of Programs for the Girl Scouts and planned that race with Gulf Winds Track Club. I am pretty sure if you have a client that wants to donate goodies/swag/whatever for the bags (next years race Feb 2009) to get their name and products recognized she/Girl Scouts would be thrilled.

michelle marts said...

haha in high school I was one of those intense cross country runners and a top 10 miler in track. And I wore Nikes. But now, I'm a lazy, 10 minute mile jogger! Got a nice pair of trail-running New Balances ;)

I'll be in touch if any of our clients would be appropriate. When does she start her planning for the race? She did a great job this year, by the way - it was a fun race!

Ben Kunz said...

Interesting that the focus of the winning media plans doesn't seem to be on results -- hey, our "likability" increased! Woohoo! -- but on innovation. I wonder sometimes if agencies go out of the box to get results for clients, or rather to get noticed by awards committees.

But then, some of this is so cool!

A lot of innovation focuses on strange outdoor in major metro markets. So how do we apply these ideas to real-world media clients? Flat-panel TVs between bullet-proof glass? I dig that, but wonder if any real clients want to go that far. And many of those ideas that work in tunnels out of NYC aren't scalable to the masses of consumers in the suburbs.

Gotta find a way to get out of the box media planning out of the city!

michelle marts said...

The actual case studies did go into more detail about the results of the campaigns - I just chose to focus on the cool buys! lol If you watched the video reel of the winners, they also focus a lot on the publicity surrounding the non-traditional media used - which is great and all - but was that planned? "Oh and look at all the news coverage we got" ("and who knew they would pick it up?!").

I do feel a little left out when these agencies go after huge spot markets like NY, Miami, etc. Is reaching New Yorkers really that important? I don't know. I'm thinking their clients have offices there. Yea, I said it.