- Adweek Staff

NEW YORK Leo Burnett's "Wii would like to play" campaign for Nintendo of America won the Grand Effie tonight at the 40th annual Effie Awards honoring effective marketing communications. Burnett in Chicago is a unit of Publicis Groupe.

Omnicom Group's Goodby, Silverstein & Partners won three Golds for Adobe, Doritos and Hewlett-Packard.

WPP Group agencies won 26 Effies overall and generally dominated the show held here at Cipriani 42nd Street. Omnnicom agencies took home 21 trophies overall. Publicis shops won 15 prizes. Interpublic Group units landed 11 awards.

"Leo Burnett's marketing strategy for the Wii will forever change the gaming industry and its dialogue with consumers," said Deborah Meyer, the Chrysler CMO who also chaired this year's Grand Effie jury. "The Grand Effie-winning campaign delivered results that any CMO would want to take back to their CEO."

The five Grand Effie finalists, who also received Gold Effies were:

-- Anomaly for the Keep a Child Alive campaign "KCA's Media Ambush of the iPhone Launch."

-- BBDO for GE's "Ecomagination Round 2" campaign in the Green category. (Agency partners included OMD, AMV BBDO, Stinson Partners and Syrup.)

-- JWT for Kimberly-Clark's Kleenex "Let it out" campaign. (Partners: Mindshare,
GMR and Ketchum.)

-- Leo Burnett for Nintendo's "Wii would like to play." (Partners: Starcom and Golin Harris.)

-- Secret Weapon Marketing for the Jack in the Box's "Sirloin vs. Angus" effort. (Horizon Media was the media partner on the campaign.)

CLICK HERE FOR MORE EFFIE WINNERS AND INFORMATION.