• by Steve McClellan  @mp_mcclellan, October 6, 2014

Omnicom’s OMD was named Agency Network of the Year at the Festival of Media Latam in Miami on Friday night after being awarded prizes in seven categories.

OMD won three  Gold Awards for Best Targeted Campaign (“Receipt” Dominican Republic), The Public Service Award (“18^th Zone Embassy” Guatamala) and the Pan-Latin Award (“Visa Points”  USA).

OMD Dominican Republic was recognized as Agency of the Year.

Publicis Groupe’s Leo Burnett Brazil won Campaign of the Year for an effort call “Bentley Burial” designed to increase organ donation in Brazil. Brazilian billionaire Chiquinho Scarpa announced on Facebook that he would bury his beloved Bentley in the backyard of his mansion. The ceremony was broadcast live across Brazil. After the car was placed into its “grave,” Scarpa stopped the burial and delivered the organ donation pitch.  Donations rose by a third within a month of the broadcast.

Bentley Burial took Gold in Best Communications Strategy and Bronze for both Best Social Media Campaign and Public Service.

Randy Ransom, head of this year’s Awards Jury said the “Bentley Burial” campaign “created a social media storm but more importantly, delivered high impact results.”

Commenting on OMD’s Agency Network win, Ransom said, “OMD truly impressed us by showing how markets like the Dominican Republic and Guatemala are leading the way in originality and effectiveness. Seeing Panama, El Salvador, Honduras and Paraguay take home awards for the first time is inspiring.”  

Burnett also took home Gold for Best Content Creation Award for a new bottle launching campaign for beer brand Bavaria SABMiller/Marca Pais.

The full list of award winners can be found here.