• by Erik Sass , Staff Writer @eriksass1, April 7, 2010

It's that time of year, when the days get longer, the sun shines brighter, and a young person's thoughts naturally turn to digital out-of-home advertising. MediaPost's Digital Out-of-Home Forum is coming up on May 13 (check it out here ) -- with panels on nifty topics like measurement with mobile devices and billboards that use facial recognition software, and of course an awards ceremony and dinner to recognize the pioneers and innovators who are driving the creative expansion of this burgeoning medium.

This year's awards entries are coming in, and the work looks quite impressive. How will this year's crop compare to last year's? Well, the deadline for entries is April 16, so it's obviously too soon to say who will take these categories in 2010, but here's a quick tour of some of last year's winners:

Best In Show went to Inwindow Outdoor. To generate buzz around the release of animated feature film "Coraline" from Laika Studios, inWindow, in affiliation with Wieden + Kennedy, created "Storescapes" in fourteen locations across seven major U.S. markets using audio, video, holograms, gesture and augmented reality. Displays in New York and Boston featured 3D holographic images of ghost children floating inside vacant storefronts. Other displays in New York, Miami, Chicago and Washington D.C. incorporated augmented reality technology superimposing images on pedestrians.

Best Branding Campaign went to n2 for The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research. This nine-week campaign in summer 2009 included nearly 137,000 screens in 230 markets, creating 1.3 billion opportunities to see the ad.

Best Integration with Traditional Media went to Reuters Time Square2 and Time Magazine, for their "Time Person of the Year" promotion. To promote its Person of the Year issue, Time magazine enabled readers to upload their own photos via mobile devices or a microsite, with the chance of having them displayed in a mock cover on the Reuter's Times Square billboard. Over 40,000 images were displayed in Times Square.

Best Integration with Experiential Marketing went to R/GA and Nokia for "The Timeline at Club Nokia." Visitors to Club Nokia, a brand new 2,500-seat theater in Los Angeles, interacted with the Timeline: one large wall-mounted LED display, five interactive wall displays and four custom-made interactive floor interfaces. Visitors captured their own Club Nokia moments via images, video and text, and uploaded them to the Timeline via SMS, MMS, email, Bluetooth and WiFi, and could also play back and manipulate all the moments on the Timeline.