• by Kelly Samardak , January 13, 2011

MEDIA Agency Of The Year, The Yale Club, New York
January 12, 2011

What a great crowd last night at the MEDIA Agency of the Year award show.  The snow was already piled up in chunky white walls around sidewalks, with Pitfall slush pools taunting pedestrians at every curb.  Did this keep the cocktail- and mini-food-loving media crowd away? Hell, no! In fact, they not only represented, but they came early!

I was assaulted as soon as I entered the Yale Club Grand Ballroom.  What was that delicious smell that caused my tongue to poof up and release slurpiness into my food chute?  I spotted the station of all stations in the corner, set up in the company of a decorative plant: The carving station.  The Swedish Chef (no, not really) was already at work, carving away at some beautifully crusted beast.  When he saw me, he beckoned me over, gesturing proudly at a huge foil-wrapped chafing dish.  Where were the angels singing as he slowly peeled back the silvery foil to reveal a big, fat herb-rubbed and roasted turkey.  YUM.

The Wantlet duo of Erno Tauriainen and Matthew Snyder arrived for their encore AOY performance.   While I was informing them of their more-Googleable fame from the night, before I spotted MPG's Belle Lenz.  Belle was making a beeline for the bar with fellow MPGer Amanda Crowley.

TargetCast tcm not only won the Independent Media Services award, but also the informal "largest entourage" award.  You couldn't swing a loose subway rat around without hitting someone from TargetCast!  The posse included Beth Storms, Errol "Do I have turkey in my teeth" Firestone, Steve Farella, Mickey Parent, Lynn Harris, Lisa Spielman, and Bruce Fagerstrom.

I also met Hallie Friedman, Alex Kim, and Elina Yankovich of Posterscope.  I reunited with Andrew Gottlieb of ValueClick,  whom I last saw at the 212 Summer Outing at the South Street Seaport.  I didn't recognize him because he was in his businessman uniform.  At 212, he was in his burger-eating laid-back-dude uniform.   He was hanging out at the back of the room, or the front, depending on you perspective, with Lynn from ValueClick and Jim Grates from Media Contacts/Havas Digital.

I found Jodi Leib of Mediabrands talking with Dan Friedman from Reprise, and Initiative's Sue Moseley and Sarah Ivey catching up.  I met new (to me) DiGennaro Communications ladies: Megan McIlroy and Sydney Cohn.  Just when you think you've met them all, more DGCers emerge from the woodwork!

Before the show got underway, I also spotted Katie Bronnenkant and Dave Williams of BLiNQ Media (one of the sponsors of the evening as well) introducing themselves to MediaPost Publisher Ken Fadner.

Let's talk awards, shall we?  MediaPost Editor In Chief Joe Mandese's breadth of knowledge, genuine passion, and and full-on geekitude about media agencies, their work, and their stories cannot be disputed.  The man could go on and on about it (and he almost did) for hours, but it's not because he's droning, its because he honestly can't say enough about the winners.

Among Joe's "You people have power and influence!" utterances:  "...you're reshaping the world"  "We're going through a new industrial revolution.  The difference between this industrial revolution and the ones that preceded it... is that the industry that is being transformed and revolutionized is a proxy for our whole society -- everything we do and think as a people and the commerce we do."

TargetCast's "Wizard of Oz"-themed moment: "What do we owe this to?  We owe it to a word that is important to us: courage."  "It takes an agency full of dedicated, hard-working people who come in whether or not they get paid, who come in whether or not Mayor Bloomberg cleans the streets," proclaimed Audrey Siegel, "and who service clients who care just as deeply about us as we do about them... that partnership is really a joy."

Self-deprecation brought to you by Mediabrands/Shopper Sciences Division:  Upon accepting the award on behalf of John Ross, after Joe introduced him as "the incubator genius guy couldn't be here today, but I believe that we have Matt Freeman," Matt Freeman continued the good-natured jabs with "I am usually the guy who shows up right after they say 'well the genius who did all this couldn't make it here tonight." Freeman gave credit where credit was due, noting that "the only thing we at Mediabrands will take credit for is retaining a talent like John Ross, who is a retailer's retailer."

The "People really do care about what they do" moment came from Posterscope's Connie Garrido, whose voiced cracked with emotion: "It's been a really eventful year at Posterscope. It's been really interesting to try and transform a buying shop into a strategic planning shop, and the only way we could do it is... " here Garrido stopped, took a deep breath, exhaling for a shaky, crackling-with-emotion declaration: "... a great team, a fantastic team. It's a team that makes a vision come true."

In "Breaking News at an Award Show" category, Interpublic's Mediabrands

Media Agency: MPG was introduced as the Media Agency Holding Company of the Year with a sidebar of the announcement of Matt Seiler as the newly appointed CEO of Mediabrands.  The acceptance speech turned into a love-in.  Seiler called Matt Freeman "the genius behind the geniuses," described collaboration as "people who really like working with each other," and called Initiative CEO Richard Beaven and Freeman his "blessed partners." The lovefest continued with Freeman saying to Seiler, "Congrats to Matt Seiler from the bottom of our hearts and three cheers for the collective good of mediabrands."

The awards wrapped, the bar reopened, and final toasts were made toward a great evening.  Until next year (or another MediaPost/OMMA event!) !

Photos are up on Flickr (more coming)!