• by September 27, 2005

OMD took "Best in Show" at MediaPost's second annual Creative Media Awards for its efforts for ABC's breakout hit "Lost." The awards were presented Monday night at Media magazine's 2006 Forecast.

OMD's innovative campaign for the TV show included its 15-second radio spots, which featured a static-distorted man's voice calling out, "Hello? Hello?" during a local sportscaster's rundown of upcoming games. OMD also promoted the show by distributing missing-persons fliers with grainy black-and-white photos of "Lost" characters.

OMD also won the award for best media plan, and best radio media plan, for its work promoting "Lost." Other finalists in the best media plan category included Fallon, nominated for its media planning efforts for Virgin Mobile, and Starcom, nominated for its Kellogg's Apple Jacks campaign. Radio finalists included Community Credit Union, for a campaign promoting itself; and Ogilvy & Mather, for Yahoo!

Ripple Effects Interactive bested Mediavest and StarcomIP to take top honors in the online media-branding category, for the VisitPA.com campaign, which marked a pioneering use of both paid online media and consumer-generated outlets. The campaign depicted six diverse groups of travelers, including a history buff and a motorcyclist, taking short road trips across the state and sharing their experiences via blogs on VisitPA.com.

Ripple Effect's' online media plan included rich media and banners on major Web properties. The agency leveraged blogs, discussion boards, and chat rooms to maximize the campaign. Traffic to the road tripper blogs on VisitPApa.com soared by 939 percent, and traffic to road trip itinerary pages on the site jumped 225 percent.

The other finalists, MediaVest and Starcom IP, were nominated for their efforts for Coca-Cola and Kellogg's Pop-Tarts, respectively.

The winner in the online media--search category was Mediacom's Beyond Interactive, for its paid search efforts on behalf of CheapTickets.com. The agency increased the number of CheapTickets.com keywords under management by 2,900 percent--to well over 100,000--and documented the correlation between position and return on investment for each keyword. Sales from CheapTickets' paid search efforts grew at more than twice the industry rate for 2004.

The other finalists for online media-search were Fathom Online/San Francisco, which was nominated for its work on behalf of QuickBooks, and Posner Advertising, which handled search efforts for Avalon Chrystie Place, Avalonbay Communities, Inc.

GM Planworks' media plan for Cadillac--which included 5-second spots to highlight the notion of going from zero to 60 mph in under 5 seconds--won this year's Creative Media Award for television. The other finalists were Fallon, for its TV strategy for Lee Dungarees, and Goodby Silverstein & Partners, for its work on behalf of Elizabeth Arden.

GM Planworks also won the Creative Media Award for branded content/product placement/sponsorship for its work for General Motors' Pontiac, beating out Atom Shockwave, Y+R Irvine for Mattel Hot Wheels, and OMD for Cingular Wireless.

Other Creative Media Award winners were: Starlink Worldwide, business media, for its work on behalf of Hewitt Associates; MediaVest, consumer magazines, for its strategy for Avon; Cossette Communications, newspapers, Nike; R/GA Reuters, outdoor or place-based media, Nike; MediaVest, interactive/enhanced television;, Kraft; Zoom Media, Global Hue, multicultural media, for Dodge; OMD Digital, OMD and Yahoo!, research/consumer insights, for Yahoo!; OMD, BBDO, Atmosphere/BBDO, communications channel plan, for GE; Fallon, new/emerging/experimental media, for Ted Airlines; and Naked Communications, creative, E4's "The Pilot Show."