• by Joe Mandese , April 12, 2006

OMD was the most-awarded media agency in the 2006 EFFIE awards, participating in 17 winning campaigns. Starcom MediaVest Group ranked second with 12 wins, followed by MindShare's seven wins. Explicit gold, silver and bronze level awards will be revealed during an awards ceremony on June 7, but media already is playing a bigger role in the prestigious awards, which are regarded because of their focus on proving marketing results and advertising effectiveness.

Effective this year, the EFFIE awards modified its scoring criteria to include a greater focus on the role of media, and has added media-specific categories such as "media strategy," "anything goes" media, and "third screen" media. Based on the new criteria, 70 percent of a campaign's final score is based on equal parts of: background, strategy, creative and media. Thirty percent of the score is based on the campaign's ability to prove results. Previously, judges gave one score for the brief and one for the creative, with the brief score counting for two-thirds of the total.

While specific awards have not yet been announced, Leo Burnett ranked with the most number of overall awards among full-service agencies, garnering 16 wins. DDB ranked second with 11, followed by BBDO's nine.

Winners in the media strategy category include: Leo Burnett Detroit, GM Planworks and Vigilante for the Pontiac-GMC Division "G6 Launch" campaign. Leo Burnett Detroit and GM Planworks also won an EFFIE along with Arc Worldwide-Chicago for their "Under Five" campaign for the Cadillac Motor Car Division of General Motors. McKinney landed an EFFIE for their "The Art of the Heist" campaign on behalf of client Audi of America.

In the "third screen" category, Goodby Silverstein & Partners won an EFFIE for their "Curious Britney Spears" campaign on behalf of client Elizabeth Arden.

In the "anything goes" category, EFFIE winners included McKinney for the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival's Realitywood campaign; PBS (In House) and The Media Kitchen for "The Greatest Boxer You Never Knew" campaign and WONGDOODY for Tully's Coffee Corporation's "Tully's 3:21 Wake-Up Call" campaign.