• by Staff Writers , September 6, 2007

Online campaigns packed with lifelike Flash and rich media features.

GSD&M
American Council on Education/First Responder

Tim Cole, Interactive Creative Director; Jeff Maki, Copywriter; Nirav Patel, Studio Artist; Jeff Bond, Agency Producer; Maureen Barry, Account Director

To promote funding for higher education, GSD&M created a banner ad that invited users to learn more about how community college funding helps assure that there are enough first responders, such as firemen, police and E.M.T.S. Users who clicked through saw a statistic regarding the percentage of first responders trained in community colleges. The call to action was SolutionsForOurFuture.org, a landing page where people could find out more about the need to support higher education.

Banners were run on a pro bono basis in open placements on sites like USATODAY.com and click-through rates reached .18 percent.

* WINNER *
ORGANIC, INC.
Warner Bros. International/"Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix"

ORGANIC: Kelley Barry, Jacob Ford, Associate Creative Director; Linda McKee, Allan Aguas, Art Directors; Trevor Jones, Yee Peng Chia, Senior Designers; Ben Citron, Copywriter; Celia Von Bernuth, Account Director; Bonnie Hoag, Production Manager.
WARNER BROS. INTERNATIONAL: Rossanna Wang, Client Representative

To promote the fifth movie in the Harry Potter series, a much darker film than its predecessors, Organic created a campaign with three key audiences in mind: fans of the novel, movie enthusiasts (who haven't read the books), and newcomers to the Harry Potter phenomenon. For fans, the banner offered allusions to the story - particularly the female villain Dolores Umbridge - while the ads still provided non-fans enough information to intrigue them.

ZIPATONI
AOL/MobileMystery

Ryan Moore, Meghan Rice, Mark Miselnicky, Chris Kilcullen, Kit Smith

Targeting both teen girls and their mothers or grandmothers, this campaign drew on a fictional character known by women of all ages: Nancy Drew. Banner ads take users into the Nancy Drew world, giving them a clue book that allows them to uncover a secret.

Consumers who click on the ads, which were placed throughout the AOL Network, were driven to the "Nancy Drew and the AOL Mobile Mystery" microsite, where they could register for a promotion, and also continue to collect clues.

Clues were compiled with the sleuthing notebook. A "Nancy Drew BOT" was available through AOL Instant Messenger on the mobile phone for hints. One of the clues needed to complete the game could be found in the movie, which hit the theaters in June.

In a nine-week period, the site received more than 1.1 million page views, surpassing the original forecast of 750,000.

Usage of the "Nancy Drew BOT" exceeded the projected goal of 12,000 unique users with a total of 14,360 unique users of the site.