Starcom MediaVest dominated last night's Festival of Media Awards, winning Network of the Year; Starcom Norway and Starcom Melbourne also finished in first and second places in the Agency of the Year award. Mars was named advertiser of the year, while the People's Award - decided, as its name suggests, by public vote - went to Mindshare Thailand's 'Life is a Musical' campaign. The ceremony came at the climax of Festival of Media, a three-day event which took place this year in Montreux, Switzerland.
As ever, the future of media was a major concern for delegates. Subjects tackled by speakers at the Festival of Media conference, which took place immediately prior to the awards ceremony, included real-time bidding, DSPs and the rising popularity of social media and mobile: all issues that touch on people's changing media consumption - and marketers' ability to measure these changes. And this interest in the new and the next carried through to the Awards' Hot New Company prize, which went to Simulmedia, the creators of a new targeted TV advertising platform.
The system, called a7, uses predictive technologies and anonymous viewing data to bring - according to Simulmedia, at least - "Internet-like" targeting capabilities to sellers and buyers of TV ad space. Platforms like this should become increasingly prominent with the inevitable further fragmentation of consumers' media consumption, as advertisers move away from the old mass market model and towards more targeted messaging.
Turning to the US, this week's other major awards ceremony was the New York Festivals International Advertising Awards, with W+K's 'Write the Future' campaign for Nike taking the 2011 Grand Award. In a classic piece of ambush marketing, Nike associated itself with the 2010 football World Cup - despite the firm not being one of the event's official sponsors - by using an iconic, big-budget three-minute video, starring some of the world's most famous footballers, that was seeded to TV and online video platforms such as YouTube. Write the Future also had a big presence on Facebook.
According to Facebook figures discussed in this Warc report, the campaign generated 169m organic impressions, 6.4m video views, 2.5bn ad views and - crucially - 3m extra "likes" for Nike within a week of launch.
Leo Burnett Sydney was named Agency of the Year at the International Advertising Awards, while BBDO - building on its strong showing at the 2011 North American Effies - was Network of the Year.
May is a busy month for global ad awards, with prizes to be handed out at the AME Festival and the CLIO Awards before the month is out. And you can keep up with all the upcoming calls for entry, deadlines and awards ceremony dates on our Global Awards Calendar.
