BRUSSELS–More than 20 “best of Europe” awards were handed out at a gala dinner at the “concert noble” hall here last night. The dinner was part of the annual Federation of European Direct Marketing Forum.
Gold, silver and bronze awards were handed out in six categories — BTB services, BTB products, consumer services, consumer products, multinational and nonprofit — while six special awards were given for various campaigns ranging from “best low budget campaign” to “best retail campaign.”
The gold award in consumer products went to the DP&A agency in the UK for a campaign launching “The Goldfish Credit Card” into an already glutted credit-card market. The card was aimed at the general market, not at niche audiences. A core target audience of 8 million was selected with more than 30 million contacts made in the first year. The main media used were TV, DRTV, radio, press, posters, direct mail, free-standing inserts, remail and telemarketing follow-up. Results pulled 20 percent of all new credit cards issued in 1996-97 into the Goldfish camp and led to winning 600,000 cardholders during the first year of the campaign.
Craik, Jones Watson of the UK won the silver award for a Land Rover campaign, while another silver went to German agency Springer & Jacoy Werbung for marketing the Mercedes Benz A Class car. OgilvyOne Worldwide won gold in the consumer services sector for the La Caixa Catalan Financial Savings bank in Spain. The campaign launched a loyalty program to appeal to children ages 8 to 12 to start savings accounts at the bank.
In the multinational category, Vienna's Palla Koblinger & Partner won the gold for a campaign to win potential customers interested in setting up an institute, foundation or joint-stock company in the principality of Liechtenstein. The campaign was called “The Road to Paradise” and used “a striking, emotional layout” based on well-known paintings of old masters. It won an 11 percent response rate among the target audience of tax consultants and their clients in Austria and Eastern Europe.
Other gold winners included Below Marketing for a road education campaign launched for the Renaultauto company and the Danish Generator agency for a campaign to open a dialog between client Bruhn, a Cannon office machinery distributor, and 435 of Denmark's largest companies who had refused to deal with Bruhn.
Only silver was awarded for the BTB services category. The winner was CP Communication, the client, the French TV channel Canal +.
Special awards went to Robert-Hayes-McCoy Consultants for the best low-budget campaign; to Generator for the best internal communication campaign for client Postbanken; Exit Marketing for Breaking new markets with telemarketing; Mainostoimiso Affector Oy for the best new media campaign; Fish.Meier Direkt for the best retail campaign (for the Swiss Migros chain of groceries) and to Clarke Hooper Consultants for best image/awareness campaign (for the Jacobs Bakery Ltd.)
