Creative work done for the Washington Post won two gold awards at the MAXI awards presentation in Washington last night.
The only strange thing about it was that the awards went to two different agencies: MindZoo and Silver Marketing.
"Charlie, you and I have handed out probably over a thousand MAXIs over the years, and I am sure we have never before given two Golds to two different winners for work for the same client." said presenter Ginny Daly to co-presenter Charlie Cadigan.
"I guess next year’s awards will reveal which agency kept the account," Cadigan responded.
Other winners included Adams Hussey, which took four gold awards—for its Air Safety Foundation, Project Angel Food, Defenders of Wildlife and Project Hope campaigns. Epsilon won two gold awards-for its redesign of the Save the Children’s Web site, and for its campaign for Huntington Disease Society of America.
Another dual winner was NPO Direct Marketing, which received two awards—for an alert mailing for the Monterey Bay Aquarium, and for a membership campaign for the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco.
"The Museum, by the way, was closed during the acquisition campaign," said Daly. "But NPO came up with a free pass to a special event as a way to get around the place being shut down and a bunch of other goodies and clever ways to present them. The result was a very strong average gift over $134."
The other gold winners included:
*Civil War Preservation Trust for donor package to finance a battle to stop a developer from obliterating the Chancellorsville battlefield. It pulled 14%.
*Robert Ritter and Associates for its e-mail on behalf of an annual conference
*Insight magazine for a new magalog, which beat the publication’s previous control by almost 50%
*CARFAX for a boxed mailing featuring a small calendar freemium
*USA Today for a give-a-gift mailing, almost 250,000 of which were mailed without testing. It doubled response over the prior year’s give-a-gift campaign.
*The Fisher Group for a dimensional mailing inviting prospects at the Direct Marketing Association’s annual conference to go on a cruise
*BMD for its mailing for a conservative political organization
*JZA Inc. for its pension-renewal mailing to executive directors of the individual Boys and Girls Clubs of America
The MAXIs are handed out by the Direct Marketing Association of Washington
