• by Karl Greenberg , June 5, 2008

And the Grand Effie goes to ... (envelope please) Leo Burnett's "Wii Would Like to Play" for Nintendo's Wii. Okay, there were other winners as well at last night's 40th Annual Effie Awards at Cipriani 42nd Street in New York City.

Leo Burnett's effort, in fact, topped a raft of finalists judged by a panel led by Deborah Meyer, lately of Toyota, now VP/CMO, Chrysler LLC. Seventy percent of scoring by Effies judges is based on the strategic challenge, idea and bringing the idea to life; and 30% on the campaign's results. The judges' numeric scores determine which marketing efforts will be awarded a gold, silver or bronze Effie trophy.

Leo Burnett's Wii effort won for avoiding the usual target for digital games: callow youth. The campaign for Wii instead appealed to parents and elders with a message that Wii isn't just for kids. Agency partners for the effort included Starcom Worldwide and Golin Harris.

"Leo Burnett's marketing strategy for the Wii will forever change the gaming industry and its dialogue with consumers" said Meyer in a release.

San Francisco-based Goodby Silverstein won the most Gold Effies of any agency in the competition, taking home three Gold trophies for campaigns for Adobe, Doritos and HP.

Gold Effie winners who were also finalists for the Grand Effie were Anomaly Communications for the Keep A Child Alive campaign "KCA's Media Ambush of the iPhone Launch"; BBDO New York won for GE's "Ecomagination Round 2" campaign (agency partners included OMD, AMV BBDO, Stinson Partners and Syrup.)

JWT won for Kimberly-Clark's Kleenex "Let it Out" campaign in the Household Supplies & Services category. Agency partners included Mindshare, GMR and Ketchum.

Secret Weapon Marketing took an Effie for the Jack in the Box "Sirloin vs. Angus" campaign. Horizon Media was the media partner on the campaign.

Proving that size does count, sizeable ad holding company WPP netted the most statues, with 26 wins for its various agencies. Omnicom had 21 agency wins; Publicis got 15 trophies, and IPG took eleven. Havas' agencies won six awards.