LONDON, June 6, 2008 – Vibrant Media, the world leader in video and contextual advertising, presented its first Vibrant Awards last night in London, recognising the creative and strategic use of in-text and contextual video advertising.
“These awards reflect the growing influence of in-text on the advertising landscape as a whole.” Says Craig Gooding, CCO and Co-founder, Vibrant Media, “We have seen the industry embrace in-text advertising since our inception in 2000 and today Vibrant works with the world’s leading brand advertisers who are reaching more than 120 million users worldwide. The Vibrant Awards is designed to inspire excellence and we want to thank the winners for delivering some of the smartest, most impactful and creative executions of in-text and contextual video advertising across Europe.”
Hundreds of campaigns from around the world were considered and evaluated based on creativity, word selection and the campaign’s ability to effectively communicate the brand message/meet campaign objectives. European finalists included:
Adidas – End2End project
BP – Race for Champions
Chrysler France – Sebring Launch
Coke – Grand Theft Auto ‘Give a little Love’
Corel – Fortunately
Diageo – Pimms
Fiat – Fiat 500
Ford – Kuga
Fortis – Business leader
HP – The Computer is Personal
IBM UK – Wimbledon
Intel – Intel Centrium Processors
Karstadt – Jubel
Lloyds TSB – Premier Loans
Microsoft – Windows Mobile
Nike – Football T90
Nintendo – Super Paper Mario
Nissan – Urban Proof
Paramount Pictures – The Kite Runner
Sky – Lost Series 4
Tourism Ireland – Visit Ireland
Unilever – Axe Shock deodorant
xBox – Fun for all
Yahoo! – Yahoo! Answers
The distinguished panel of industry judges consisted of:
* Guy Phillipson, CEO, IAB UK
* Peter Bale, Executive Producer, Microsoft
* Dr. Jochen Kalka, Editor-in-Chief, W&V
* Susan Kingston, Business Director International, Neo@Ogilvy
* Rich Sutcliffe, Digital Editor, Media Week
* Richard Townsend, Managing Partner, Circus Street
* Rob Watt, Media Director, Avenue A | Razorfish
Three awards were presented.
Gold Award:
First Place (Gold) was awarded to Yahoo! Answers (Carat Digital, UK). The campaign creative was custom built for in-text and designed to intelligently align the Yahoo! Answers database of real user questions with relevant words within online web content. Each creative was pre-populated with actual questions asked by Yahoo!’s users. For example the word “pasta” would trigger the question “how do you cook pasta?”. This unit would drive users to real-time answers related to cooking pasta and the opportunity to post their own responses. This campaign ran across 12 different sectors and achieved an outstanding average CTR.
Silver Award:
Second Place (Silver) went to Fiat (Isobar, France) for their 2008 Fiat 500 campaign. Fiat used words such as ‘compact’, ‘chic’ and ‘fun’ to deliver creative that featured objects commonly identified with these words. These objects created a personality for the compact car and the relevant product and emotional words helped to raise awareness amongst their two target audiences of core targets and early adopters. The average CTR for the campaign was excellent.
Judges Choice Award:
Finally, the Judges Choice Award (Blue), is a special honour awarded to Chrysler France (Mediaedge:cia / Proximity BBDO, France) for its innovative and creative Chrysler Sebring launch in France. Creative agency Proximity BBDO France created five videos clips specifically for in-text that focused on daily situations (e.g. cooking dinner, asleep in bed, doing exercise). The creative maximised the intimacy of the internet with a comic video clip. As the user moved their mouse over relevant words within web content they would trigger an ad that would show a man who had been interrupted during his daily routines. The clips were shown relative to the time of day so if the user moused over in the morning they would see him being woken up or in the evening they would see him cooking dinner. The annoyed man would play an active role, directing users on how to use the unit to click for photos, car information, their local dealer or to request a brochure on the new Chrysler Sebring.
Vibrant will be hosting its US inaugural Vibrant Awards on 12th June in New York.
About Vibrant Media
Vibrant Media is a world leading video and contextual advertising network, giving marketers the opportunity to deliver highly targeted, user-initiated advertisements The company works closely with advertisers, agencies and Web publishers to plan, buy, deliver and optimise Vibrant In-Text Advertising campaigns across thousands of websites. Vibrant Video provides measurable brand engagement through the largest pay per click video advertising network. Reaching more than 120 million unique users per month, Vibrant Media manages more than five billion words per month for top advertisers such as Sony, Intel, New Line Cinema, Microsoft and Toyota. The company was founded in 2000 and has offices in New York, London, San Francisco, Chicago, Detroit, Paris and Hamburg, with more than 200 employees. The Company’s rapid growth has been recognised by both the Inc. 500 and Deloitte Fast 50 list for two consecutive years. For more information, visit www.vibrantmedia.co.uk.
