BRUSSELS: Agencies from Denmark and France took top honours at the European Communications Agencies Effie Awards event in Brussels yesterday, Grey Copenhagen gaining gold for Coca-Cola Zero and TBWA\G1 Paris doing likewise with its 'Urbanproof' campaign for the Nissan Qashqai.

The Silver and Bronze categories were dominated by Germany and the UK, each garnering five awards.

Silver Euro Effies went to Heye Group for McDonald's local relevance programme Hüttengaudi; Grey London scored with Disappear, a sustainability initiative' for Procter & Gamble's Lenor; while Publicis London/Six & Co also did P&G proud with their People, not Symptoms campaign for the Vicks brand; and BBDO's Team Daimler Smart with its effort for the smart fortwo.

Bronze awards went to Leo Burnett & Target Romania for P&G's Wash & GoBest of Traditions'; Grey London for GlaxoSmithKline's Corega (Celebrity Testimonials); Atletico International's campaign Toys for SEAT Altea XL; Kemper Trautmann's Born of Powerful Ideas for Audi;  RKCR/Y&R for Accenture's We know what it takes to be a Tiger: Saatchi & Saatchi Germany for Sony Ericsson (Music Campaign 2007); Ogilvy & Mather Germany for Unilever/Dove (Beauty has no age limit) and Universal McCann for the Intel powers music MySpace programme. 

Top of the heap Grey EMEA scooped the Agency Network of the Year award for the fourth consecutive time, despite a close-fought contest.

Unlike most advertising gongfests, which are judged by the preferences (and prejudices) of their adland peers, Effies are awarded on the basis of effectiveness as determined by a range of specific criteria.

All the winning campaign papers will be available on the WARC site in early October.

Data sourced from EACA; additional content by WARC staff