RYAN PartnershipDove Men + Care, "Dove Men + Care" BEAUTY AND COSMETICS Look, pro-baseball players are just like you, Average Joe! They have kids, worry about dry skin...At least that is what the Dove Men + Care Journey to Comfort campaign proposes. Launched during a branded sponsorship of MLB.com during Father's Day (nice targeted start), short vignettes of three stars (Joe Girardi, Andy Pettitte and Albert Pujols) show the men in the comfort of their own (very comfortable) homes playing with …

OMD USA Reese's, "Reese's Perfect XBox Live Halloween Event" USE OF GAMING To get gamers to play dress-up, OMD USA launched a Reese's-branded Xbox 360 costume contest that led to 1.1 million costume votes being cast for best in show (typically, Xbox Live campaigns earn 55K votes). But the contest was just a precursor to an online Halloween concert event that had users' dolled-up avatars taking center stage in Guitar …

MediaVest P&G/ Crest White Strips, "Travel Home with a Bright Smile" BEAUTY AND COSMETICS Where are people spending November online? Travel sites. And because you want to look your best when you go home (in case you run into your ex at the movie theater) but also can't afford to go because hello, there's a …

Mondo Studios The Progressive Group of Insurance Companies, "Route-Rageous!" USE OF GAMING While its name is semi-idiotic (Route-Rageous!), the game itself - built by Mondo Studios - is a brilliantly engaging driving-themed brainteaser that was popular enough to warrant its own iPhone and Facebook game. The Progressive brand stays smartly on the sidelines, until you bend your fender, and a "Progressive Concierge Claims Service" comes to the rescue. The game, …

McKinney Qwest Communications, "Protect Ur Rep"USE OF GAMING To market to the advertising-cynical video gamer demographic, McKinney decided to make their client's in-game billboards a vandalism target. The six-week long Protect Ur Rep contest offered gamers a chance to plaster self-made posters of their in-game Xbox 360 avatars over Qwest ads for all the joystick jockey world to see. The incentive of bragging rights piqued gamers in droves, with 400,000 nationalized uniques hitting the microsite (after …

NetPlus MarketingDeb Shops, "Model Search" APPAREL/FASHION To raise brand awareness during the teen retail frenzy that is back-to-school shopping, Deb Shops launched the Model Search campaign, inviting contestants to promote themselves on Facebook, MySpace and YouTube (yielding plenty of searches and hits to the Deb Shops site). Visitors to the site could vote for their favorite young lady, and Project Runway winner Jay McCarroll added a celebrity endorsement throughout the campaign. Sales for the month were up, up, up and …

Turner Sports Nationwide Insurance, "NASCAR Nationwide" SPONSORSHIPS Nationwide Insurance became the title sponsor of the 2nd tier NASCAR racing series. Where better to plug the idea of auto coverage? There is ample NASCAR info; it may not be baseball, but the competitions are loaded with stats and stars. To highlight its insurance services, Nationwide sponsors auto-info links alongside racing links. The blend makes the marketing push more subtle and the insurance giant more likeable, assuming such a thing is possible. The campaign drove …

TheFaderNike Sportswear, "Pitch Perfect" APPAREL/FASHION For the Pitch Perfect campaign, Fader produced original Nike branded "mix tapes" (which were downloaded more than 100,000 times) leading up the World Cup. During the games, mini-documentaries gave an in-depth look at the people of South Africa - on and off the football field. The content was engaging and beautifully executed and added value to the World Cup experience for soccer fans, music fans, Nike fans ... just about anyone actually.

Foodbuzz Newman's Own, "Family Bites" SPONSORSHIPS Foodbuzz, a site with a bazillion foodies, made Newman's Own part of the buzz by asking a targeted set of 100 bloggers to use Newman's products. Newman's Own, in turn, sponsored the site's "Family Bites" section, where Foodbuzz spotlighted one blogger a week and featured the recipes they concocted from the company's line. The marketing was colorful, user-friendly and productive: Selected bloggers ladled 468 recipes that generated 3,000 comments and 6x ROI for Newman's Own.

Deep Focus AMC, "Breaking Bad" SPONSORSHIPS To increase viewership of AMC's "Breaking Bad" and attract an alternative culture audience, the agency partnered with Vice and VBS.tv. The cross-platform effort produced a custom screening room, in the guise of a meth lab, which aggregated VBS.tv's intense drug-related content into a branded "Breaking Bad" hub, neatly linking the two entities. The dark, dangerous-looking site scored more than 200K total page views and the show's season 3 premiere …