Everyone needs to spruce up a bit when they get to a certain age, and the Direct Marketing Association’s International Echo Awards are no exception.
To mark the award program’s 75th anniversary, a new Echo logo and trophy will be debuted at the DMA’s Annual Conference and Exhibition in New Orleans.
The new trophy marks the first time in more than a quarter of a century that the statue has been redesigned, says agency veteran and industry consultant Connie Snapp DeBord, the 2004 Echo Committee’s chair.
The clear, crystal-like piece isn’t the only award to be updated, says Melissa Cabot, manager of the Echoes. Other top honors, such as the Diamond Echo, also have been revamped.
“The new trophy is absolutely stunning,” she says. “The entire program has gotten not just a face-lift but a tummy tuck, collagen, the whole deal. It needed it.”
As part of the celebration, a Creative Carnivále and Agency Arena in the conference’s exhibit hall will showcase an “Echo Museum” of classic winners, entries and campaigns of note, plus offer case study presentations by 2004 Echo winners and interactive consultations with creative professionals.
The anniversary will give the association a chance to see how the direct marketing community has evolved — as well as how sophisticated DM has always been, says Sid Liebenson, executive vice president and marketing director for Draft and chair of the 2005 Echo committee.
“There’s work that was done decades ago that we look at now and think ‘Wow, that was really forward thinking,’” notes Liebenson, who has served on the Echo committee for four years and entered and helped judge the competition for about two decades.
To gather material for the museum, members of the Echo Committee spent countless hours poring over entries from years past.
“It was just fascinating,” says DeBord. “I’ve been in the business for over 30 years and I remember in the early 1970s thinking we were plowing such new ground doing all these new things that had never been done before. I really believed that. [Looking over the archives,] I was blown away by the stuff that was going [on] in the 1940s and ’50s. We thought we were pioneers, and they had already been doing it for 20 years. It was amazing.”
DeBord’s personal favorite was an NBC ad from the early 1950s, a direct mail campaign used to sell television advertising.
Over the years, the judging process has become more involved, as many campaigns are more integrated and the Web is part of many efforts.
“When you’re judging one media, its right there,” Liebenson says. “Now you have to judge different media and think, ‘How do these integrate with each other, how does each work on its own?’ It makes the judging process more complicated, and a lot longer, too.”
Echo categories are regularly evaluated to see if the mix still works with the current environment, he notes. If some categories are overly full with entries, while others are lighter, the committee considers which might need to be split or combined.
The judging process for the 2004 awards has changed, says DeBord. While the second two rounds of judging are still evaluated using a 10-point scale, in the first round each piece is viewed by a team of three judges who each give a “yes,” “no” or “maybe” vote to decide whether the entry moves further. If the answer isn’t clear, the judges discuss their opinions and jointly make the decision. “This will help [ensure] the best pieces [move on],” she says.
The DMA will offer a special 75th anniversary Echo CD-ROM for sale, as well as a CD of the 2004 winners.
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