• by September 26, 2005

Proving that media plans can be both creative and effective, planning finalists came up with everything from "messages in a bottle" to a kids' version of "CSI."

WINNER & BEST IN SHOW

Agency: OMD

Client: ABC "Lost"

At a time when conventional media buys appear to get lost in a sea of advertising clutter, OMD developed a strategy to promote the ABC prime-time series "Lost" that was sure to be, well, found. The plan reinvented traditional definitions of media, turning unexpected venues into communications outlets to promote the show. OMD's media plan tied directly to the show's storyline about a group of survivors of a plane crash. These included a series of distress calls broadcast on radio, which brought a flood of listeners' calls to radio stations, hand-distributed missing persons fliers driving people to a rescue Web site, and, using a medium that was tailor-made for the product, messages in bottles scattered along beaches. These strategies were so radical that OMD actually negotiated what may have been a radio advertising first: Convincing stations to run the "Lost" distress calls over conventional radio content. The campaign worked: Viewers found "Lost." And ABC found traction for its prime-time turnaround.

Agency: Fallon

Client: Virgin Mobile

Fallon's plan for Virgin Mobile's fourth quarter 2004 campaign invented a new holiday: Christma-hanukwanzakah (CHK). Faced with a lean budget and one of the most competitive holiday marketing seasons ever for the wirelesscategory, Fallon's media team came up with CHK -- a contraction of Christmas, Hanukkah, and Kwanzaa -- to break through the retail marketing clutter. The concept also tapped into a core personality trait of all Virgin brands: The ardent challenging of convention. Fallon compared the inclusiveness of CHK to the all-inclusive gift: Pre-paid cell phone service with no strings attached. Cable TV spots during Comedy Central's "The Chappelle Show" and "South Park," and Cartoon Network's "Adult Swim," featured disarmingly cheeky creative, including an original "holiday carol." CHK greeting cards also appeared as slides in movie theaters and were passed virally among friends.

Agency: Starcom

Client: Kellogg's Applejacks

Faced with increased competition for client Kellogg's Apple Jacks cereal, Starcom engaged the brand's core tween targets with a mystery serial that spanned a variety of media platforms, and put the audience in control of the investigation. Tweens were recruited to join the Apple Jacks Investigative Squad and solve the mystery of "who put the 'jack' shapes in Apple Jacks?" The strategy leveraged kids' insatiable desire to take control and discover grown-up situations. The agency exploited that by building a "CSI"-style experience around the investigation squad, and rolling it out in 15 phases over nine months of clues that appeared on TV, online, broadband, on-pack, point-of-sale, and in video-on-demand programming. Limited edition packages of Apple Jacks released mystery news, including the story's culmination via an in-pack dvd with exclusive details of the guilty party. The campaign delivered a 4 percent overall sales increase goal, and garnered 17.1 million applejacks.com page views and 108,000 registered squad agents.