PROMO EXPO EXCLUSIVE: RYAN PARTNERSHIP, GE TAKE TOP PRO AWARD

CHICAGO – Wilton, CT-based Ryan Partnership earned Best Overall Promotion honors last night as PROMO unveiled the winners of the 11th annual PRO Awards competition.

To publicize the launch of client GE Financial Assurance’s new Web site last summer, the agenc y created a unique campaign that dropped wallets in high-traffic locations for passers-by to find. Inside the wallets were an instant-win gamecard and information about the site. The effort generated heavy media coverage and a 20-to-one return on investment.

In accepting the award, GE brand marketing vp Chris Matthews thanked ceo Jack Welch for giving the campaign — a departure for a company known for being conservative — the greenlight last spring. Matthews promised more innovative marketing in the future.


Among other highlights at the gala evening awards ceremony was the induction of Camp Jeep as the inaugural member of the PRO Awards Hall of Fame. The seven-year-old owner festival, which has won PRO Awards three straight years, has become so popular that Jeep is now using it as a purchase incentive.

An estimated 400 marketing professionals attended the event. This year’s PRO Awards program was the most successful ever, with more than 200 entries from 75-plus agencies and brand marketers. (The quality of those campaigns was probably the best ever, too.) Here’s a quick rundown of the winning campaigns in each category. (More detailed case studies will follow in PROMO’s November cover story.)

BEST OVERALL PROMOTION

MOST INNOVATIVE COMMUNICATION STRATEGY

Campaign: Tossed & Found

Agency/Client: Ryan Partnership/GE Financial Network

To hype a new online financial service, GE used a promotion as compelling as it was unique. In July and August 2000, Ryan sent guerrilla teams to infiltrate 12 markets, dropping 5,000 “lost” wallets on city streets, outside office buildings, in elevators, at train stations, and elsewhere. Consumers who picked up the faux wallets found $1 inside and a plastic instant-win gamecard offering a chance at a $100,000 investment account and other prizes. Public transportation ads, radio merchandising, and extensive p.r. supported. Site traffic more than doubled during the eight weeks of the campaign, which generated more than 150 million media impressions.

BEST MULTIDISCIPLINE CAMPAIGN

Campaign: Founding Fathers

Agency/Client: In-house/The History Channel

The History Channel used a bevy of tools last fall to generate viewership for its Founding Fathers mini-series. A Wannabe President on-air sweeps had viewers spotting clues before calling to win a trip recreating the settlement of America. A high school essay contest offered college scholarships. Five million pamphlets were distributed through 3,000 libraries, TV spots and outdoor billboards extended the message, a mobile Time Machine took it grassroots, and direct mail brought cable affiliates into the effort. More than 26,000 viewers entered the sweeps, 5,000 students submitted essays, and ratings for the four-day mini-series were double network averages.

BEST USE OF ADVERTISING

Campaign: The Neal McCoy

Agency/Client: Frankel/Fleetwood Homes

This four-month campaign centered on Fleetwood’s sponsorship of country singer Neal McCoy’s tour. In addition to the standard signage at each concert venue, Frankel devised an on-site game dangling a new home; concert-goers received gamepieces that sent them to retail locations to learn if they’d won. CD samplers were given to customers who toured homes, and a separate sweeps at retail offered a private concert by McCoy. TV spots and print ads supported. Direct mail kept retailers in the loop. Calls to Fleetwood’s toll-free hotline tripled, sales increased, and 25-percent more retailers joined Fleetwood’s Pinnacle program as the company regained market-leader status.

BEST USE OF DIRECT MEDIA

Campaign: Camp Jeep

Agency/Client: Pentamark Worldwide/DaimlerChrysler

DaimlerChrysler’s annual summer festival, which won PRO Awards the last two years, continued to strike deep chords with Jeep owners in 2000. Working with a smaller budget than the year before, Pentamark went to work combining direct mail, e-mail, and cross-promotion components to get past attendees to return and recruit new enrollees. Some 250,000 people (70,000 fewer than in 1999) were initially invited through an extensive six-month communications effort that heavily leveraged e-mail as well as the reach of the brand’s Jeep Provisions merchandise catalog. By now, it’s no surprise that all of the event’s 2,3000 vehicle slots sold out.

BEST USE OF NEW MEDIA

Campaign: Motorola V2397 Launch

Agency/Client: The Zipatoni Co./Motorola

Looking to make Motorola’s V2397 phone hip with teens, Zipatoni hooked up with MTV’s Total Request Live for a holiday promotion to bump sales through retailer AT&T. TRL host Carson Daly appeared in ads offering an MTV gift bag with phone purchase. Private launch parties in major markets generated excitement with retailers. An online component let phone users send text messages to Daly and enter a sweeps. Some 28,000 consumers entered the sweeps (9,000 opting in for more product information), 15,000 sent missives to Daly, and sell-through beat the target by 17 percent. Other wireless carriers have since asked to partner with Motorola.

MOST EFFECTIVE LONG-TERM CAMPAIGN

Campaign: Save Lids to Save Lives

Agency/Client: In-house/General Mills

General Mills put its three-year-old support of the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation on-pack last fall in a three-month cause-marketing program that provided donations with every purchase. Special pink lids on six-ounce cups promised 10 cents for every top consumers mailed in — in addition to an initial $550,000 donation. Participants were encouraged to form collection teams and register them online at yoplaitusa.com. National TV spots and print ads in women’s magazines supported. More than 400 teams were formed, with the busiest collecting as many as 20,000 lids. More than five million lids were redeemed, and cup volume rose 20 percent.

BEST ACTIVITY GENERATING BRAND AWARENESS/TRIAL

Campaign: Seize the Night

Agency/Client: DraftWorldwide/M&M/Mars

To reposition M&M/Mars’ Milky Way Dark as Milky Way Midnight, DraftWorldwide sent the brand where few candies have gone before. Leather-clad samplers rode motorcycles to night clubs and other cool hang-outs to deliver samples and premiums, while videos and branded light projections created atmosphere inside the establishments — which also set up special sales kiosks for the candy. Elsewhere, sampling on hundreds of college campuses added greater buzz, as did a Spring Break leg that reached one million co-eds. Sales rose 25 percent, awareness of the new brand reached 60 percent in the target markets, and trial rose 166 percent.

BEST ACTIVITY GENERATING BRAND VOLUME

Campaign: Bring a Bagel to Work Days

Agency/Client: WatersMolitor/Dunkin’ Donuts

To move bagel volume for the chain, WatersMolitor used a campaign that sent teams wearing branded business-casual outfits into 1,100 offices in six markets to drop off bagels, cream cheese, coffee, and coupons over a five-day period. An online instant-win sweeps at dunkindonuts.com dangled free product, Palm Connect organizers, and office chairs while building a database for the client. Counter cards and take-one flyers extended the message in-store to existing customers. The campaign lifted bagel sales 15 percent above target while the online game drove unique visits up 92 percent. More than 25,000 bagels and 72,000 coupons were distributed.

BEST ACTIVITY GENERATING BRAND LOYALTY

Campaign: Camp Jeep

Agency/Client: Pentamark Worldwide/DaimlerChrysler

BEST BUSINESS-TO-BUSINESS

Campaign: Personality

Agency/Client: Momentum/Boise Cascade

To generate sales of key supplier products and position Boise as the expert in its field last spring, Momentum mailed packages customers could use to determine which color matched their personality and how they could best “color coordinate” with co-workers. The information was scattered throughout a 36-page national sales flyer delivered to 300,000 customers. Recipients were directed online to take a personality test. The campaign generated $39.3 million in sales of promoted products, 15.8 percent higher than the year-ago period. Requests for copies of the sales flyer rose 27 percent, while 71 percent of Web-site visitors took the test.

BEST RETAIL ACCOUNT-SPECIFIC CAMPAIGN

Campaign: grl>lab

Agency/Client: Upshot/Procter & Gamble

To help P&G and partner CVS develop greater insight into teen shopping behavior (and increase sales of Cover Girl products), Upshot recruited girls 12 to 17 to conduct videotaped “diaries” of their trips through three drug stores. After reviewing tapes and conducting focus groups, the agency culled findings to launch “grl>lab” merchandise sections. Print ads, a Web site, and a loyalty program supported. After three months, the gap between Cover Girl sales in CVS and the rest of the food/drug/mass channel had closed by 1.7 points, and the brand’s market share within the chain was running 19 percent higher than elsewhere.

BEST IDEA OR CONCEPT

Campaign: Fundraiser in a Box

Agency/Client: Civic Entertainment Group/A&E

A viewership-generating program tied to a Biography special on Impressionist artists last spring featured A&E’s now-standard collection of alternative partners. The network solicited 185 art museums to host fundraising events around screenings of the mini-series, and got 64 museums to join in. Fundraiser in a Box kits included screeners, tune-in postcards, posters, audio and video reels, tips for pitching the media — and two cases of wine provided by partner Gallo. The subsequent events attracted 38,000 attendees. More than 85,000 postcards were mailed, and more than 250,000 museum patrons viewed the P-O-P. The show’s ratings were 32 percent higher than average.

BEST CREATIVE

Campaign: Art of WEGA

Agency/Client: Brand Buzz/Sony

Proving that art and technology are a winning combination, Sony supported its high-end WEGA flat-screen TV during the holidays by generating awareness among single urban consumers in New York City and Chicago. After launching with a pair of star-studded parties, Brand Buzz went mobile with a traveling exhibit that “framed” pieces of art (borrowed through an arrangement with nonprofit GenArt) on WEGA screens and visited high-traffic locations. A sweeps used various prizes to collect leads, while radio spots, online ads, and other guerrilla tactics supported. The campaign droves sales up 17-percent higher than goal and generated 220 million impressions in just six weeks.