PROMO Magazine’s EMMAs celebrate the industry’s best entertainment-based promotions. Now in its sixth year, the 2004 EMMAs added a category for Sports Entertainment, and separated the Live Event category into Live Event: Tour and Live Event: One Time.
AT&T Wireless and Einson Freeman won top honors for Best Overall with AT&T’s American Idol sponsorship, which let viewers vote for their favorite contestant via text message — and made text-messaging commonplace. This is the first time a broadcast TV campaign has won EMMA’s Best Overall.
A&E’s Spies & Lies campaign won in the cable TV category; its sweeps offering a grand-prize trip to London increased viewership for the new spy drama. Marketing partnerships were also developed to generate off-network exposure. Civic Entertainment Group, New York City, handled.
In the electronic games segment, Vivendi Universal Games developed an in-house campaign to launch its Hulk DVD, which featured a Hulk Xbox demo that sparked trial and purchase for the video game.
MasterCard teamed up with Universal Studios’ Dr. Seuss’ The Cat in the Hat for its 2003 holiday campaign. The winning feature film campaign, created by Denver-based The Integer Group, leveraged MasterCard’s “Priceless” brand campaign with consumers, card issuers and merchants.
New Line Cinema worked with EastWest Creative, New York City, to develop The Lord of the Rings Adventure Card program that featured specially marked cards on more than 10 million DVDs and VHS copies of the film. The cards highlighted a corresponding Web site, which led consumers to an online sweeps and other special offers.
Winning the Internet EMMA for its new entertainment destination, eBay used both off-line and online tactics to draw consumers to its new site, eBay Entertainment. Working with Zipatoni, St. Louis, the online auction site featured an instant-win game and offline entertainment partners.
Unilever took the One-Time Live Event honors for its Axe House Party via GMR Marketing, New Berlin, WI. Sweeps winners won a trip to Miami to party in a mansion; Unilever filmed the bash, then aired it on TNN.
Kellogg’s Pop-Tarts won for best Live Event Tour with its American Idol Live! tour that brought American Idol finalists to malls, let kids taste frozen Hot Fudge Sundae Pop-Tarts and boosted Pop-Tart sales 26%. Starcom Entertainment, Chicago, handled.
Kraft Foods’ Munch Madness won the Sports Entertainment category with in-store and on-pack promos across 35 brands, tailored to NCAA markets. DiGiorno pizza boxes carried game pieces with 1,500 school names; fans followed tourney play to see if their game piece was a winner. EastWest Creative, New York City, handled.
Smirnoff won for best business-to-business/trade audience with its Smirnoff Tastemaker Sessions that treated bartenders in five cities to a first-run movie (The Last Samurai) and apres-film drinks parties via U.S. Concepts, New York City.
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