• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, December 14, 2011

JWT’s Digitaria took top honors in the New/Emerging/Experimental Media category and also won Best in Show at MEDIA magazine's 2011 Creative Media Awards in New York City Tuesday night for the innovative "LRA Crisis Tracker" it designed and executed for Invisible Children, a non-profit whose mission it is to combat the Lord’s Resistance Army’s atrocities in Central Africa by spreading awareness and information about its movements.

Digitaria won best in show, not just because its media solution served a public “good,” said presenting judge Mike Bloxham of the Media Behavior Institute, but because it ingeniously used media to solve a problem that could be applied to a wide range of marketers that might need to gather disparate information in the field and organize and present it in a way that gave it context and global access.

The “LRA Crisis Tracker” combined and array of low-tech media like local radio broadcasting towers Central African communities use to report information about the LRA’s movements, a sophisticated database system and an elegant, interactive Web experience that any interested party – government and non-government organizations, the media and concerned citizens – could use to track and spread awareness about the LRA.

In accepting the award, Digitaria Chief Technology Officer Chuck Phillips was visibly choked up, and said he was “speechless,” marking one of several emotionally charged moments of the night.

Another was when Sandra Day Cranny, executive vice president-communications planning at Lincoln, Nebraska-based Bailey Lauerman, accepted the agency’s second award of the evening for an innovative radio campaign for Union Pacific Railroad, also saying she was “speechless.” The agency also took top honors in the Business Media category for its “Exmark Pride” campaign for for Exmark Manufacturing.

GroupM’s MediaCom unit was the most awarded agency of the night, winning three categories, including Branded Content/Product Placement for its “Day with the Cup” campaign for Discover, the Creative category for its “Jersey City Project” for Audi, and the Media Plan category for its “Sunday Strategy” effort for Audi.

Other multiple winners included Carat for the Communications Channel Plan (“World’s Scariest Shave” for Gillette) and Multicultural (Procter & Gamble’s Pampers); Havas Digital for Mobile (with Mobext for Volvo) and Online Media/Branding (Volvo); and Starcom for Research/Consumer Insights (EQ) and Television (with Leo Burnett for Buick’s “Human Highlights Reel”).

Other category winners included:

Performance Media & Marketing: Gotham Direct for Chiquita’s “Back to School Chiquita Banana Smart Sweeps” campaign.

Interactive/Enhanced TV: Brightline for Axe’s “Axe Excite” campaign.

Online Media Search: Covario for US Local Solar’s “SolarCity” campaign.

Outdoor or Place-Based Media: History Channel for its “Sewer Gators” campaign for “Swamp People.”

Print: mediahub from Mullen for its “Holiday Wish List” campaign for Zappos.

Social Media: AgencyNet for its “Unlocked” campaign for Rihanna and Island Def Jam Records.