It's no secret that we live in a huge media fishbowl, rendered bigger and even more full of life with the advent of consumer-generated content. That reality is really starting to spill over into the world of media planners, who we honor and celebrate with this year's installment of our Media Plan of the Year awards. At least three of the winning plans consciously chose the path they did with the hope and expectation that other media would be interested and offer coverage (read: free impressions). Take MediaCom's decision to plaster the front end of a Volkswagen Jetta on a billboard in the outfield at Shea Stadium and other cathedrals of baseball. The MediaCom team estimates that the move yielded some $4 million in free exposure. Both Digital winners (yes, it's an historic year, as we accommodate two standout plans in this red-hot sector) -- Neo@Ogilvy, recognized for its use of widgets to promote the Halloween-themed Fright Fest at client Six Flags, and ZenithOptimedia, honored for creating wikis and egging on bloggers to discuss client Hewlett Packard's new gaming system -- knew they'd get pickup, and counted on it to help deliver results.

The fact is, media planners typically labor behind the plastic seaweed of the fishbowl. But all of this year's winners are Big Fish to us. Congratulations!

Spending Over $25 Million: PHD

Spending $10-25 Million: Carat

Spending Under $10 Million: MediaHub/Mullen

Spending $1 Million or Less: Spark Communications

Best Use of National TV and Cable: Deutsch

Best Use of Local TV and Cable: Media Kitchen

Best Use of Print: Maxus

Best Use of Radio: Horizon Media

Best Use of Out-of-Home: MediaCom

Best Use of Digital: Neo@Ogilvy

Best Use of Digital: ZenithOptimedia

Best Use of Mobile: GSD&M

Best Use of Nontraditional: Starcom




Spending Over $25 Million: PHD

By Anthony Crupi

The human tendency to anthropomorphize the creatures that share the world with us, to project our own behaviors and motives onto the furry beasts that roam the plains and scuttle around the jungle floor, probably has its roots in the development of the neocortex. In imagining how other species experienced their environment, Homo sapiens were able to anticipate animal behavior, which, in turn, allowed early man to assume his place at the top of the food chain.

Today, there are more than six billion higher brains mucking around the planet, and while relatively few of them are engaged in any sort of predator-prey dynamic, human fascination with the animal kingdom remains steadfast. Last spring, Discovery Channel stirred that age-old affinity with its 11-hour documentary series Planet Earth, a transformative introduction to the wonders of the natural world that is at once epic in its scope and jaw-dropping in its evocation of tellurian splendor.

Eggheaded exegesis aside, Planet Earth certainly excites a wealth of visceral responses as well. Cute things romp. Monstrous things chomp.

Inevitably, because nature is more bloody-minded than fair, the cute gets chomped by the monstrous. And as the backdrop to all the struggle, there's always the Northern Lights or the vast expanse of Antarctic ice to make the observer feel at once a part of the tableau and yet wholly alien to the scene and what takes place there.

Try getting all that in a 30-second spot.

Remarkably, the keen (and not at all predatory) neocortices at PHD managed that unlikely feat, one reason they've earned the Media Plan of the Year in Spending $25 Million or more. Because the pictures Planet Earth filmmakers were able to capture over the course of their five-year shoot could speak far more eloquently than any mere ad copy, the PHD team allowed those visuals to do all the heavy lifting. But it is how they deployed those load-bearing images that took the campaign to the next level.

First, a little back-story. As the millennium dawned, Discovery founder and chairman John Hendricks conceived of a wildly ambitious project to document animal activity across the globe, using the most advanced high-definition technology available. The cost, shouldered by Discovery and the BBC, totaled some $25 million.

Because shooting started in 2002, Discovery's marketing team had a sizeable head start when it came time to hashing out the early consumer-targeting strategy. "We started working on this three years in advance of the premiere, when the first footage started coming in," says Marina Anglim, svp, media planning and partnerships for Discovery Communications. "This was going to be the biggest show we'd ever done, and so it was going to call for an equally ambitious marketing effort in terms of scale."

The early rough-cut screenings were by all accounts extraordinary and the Discovery marketing team took little time to develop an overarching media strategy. "Our mantra literally was seeing is believing. That was the filter through which we approached this," Anglim says. "What we were seeing was so cinematic, we realized that we had to generate the same kind of consumer anticipation for this show that a studio generates in the run-up to the release of a major motion picture...This was our blockbuster."

While national TV, spot cable and magazine placement would play their respective parts, Planet Earth's spine-tingling HD presentation screamed out for a big-screen media push. Fortuitously enough, just months before the debut of Planet Earth, Discovery had nailed down a marketing pact with National CineMedia, which would give the TV conglomerate the opportunity to run promotional spots on some 11,000 theater screens nationwide, via NCM's FirstLook platform.

"We really blew out the cinema realm," says Wistar Dean, associate media director at PHD. "So much of what was up on the screen was never-before-seen footage, previously unobserved animal behavior, so the idea was to bring some of that to a movie audience." Other key players on the campaign at PHD included Jennifer Neal, executive vp, managing partner, PHD East; Anita Cheung, associate media director, digital; Bettina Gallo, supervisor; Heather Gregg, vp, account director; Tal Burgan, planner; Sean McGarr, planner; Tanya Zvonkin, vp, supervisor, national broadcast; Paul Simon, buyer; Thomas Wright, assistant buyer; Aileen Larsen, vp, associate broadcast director/radio; and Deirdre D'Attoma, supervisor/radio.

Clearly, Planet Earth was not just another natural-history show, and as such, it had the potential to reach a broad, demographically diverse audience. To reach the usual suspects, PHD targeted art-house theaters, but it also hit the multiplexes in order to touch down with consumers who, perhaps, were not regular Discovery viewers. In addition to a trailer-length preview, PHD encouraged further sampling by providing Planet Earth DVDs in select theatres.

While the cinematic approach was inspired, PHD's outdoor campaign was a greater triumph still. In the first such execution of its kind, the agency deployed high-def video screens on bus kiosks in strategic locations throughout New York City. Not only were passersby treated to the sights and sounds of Planet Earth, but clips from the series could also be streamed to any Bluetooth-enabled mobile device. To protect the investment, each screen was sealed between plates of bullet-proof plastic, a polymer that also was hardy enough to withstand blows from baseball bats and crowbars. (This is New York we're talking about.) The sets were also wired with security alarms and GPS tracking devices.

"With a typical out-of-home buy, you are limited by having to get your message across with a static image," Dean says. "We blew two-dimensional creative out of the water."

In a sense, that innovative approach echoed the unofficial Discovery manifesto, the guiding principle behind the world's largest nonfiction media company. "The campaign was like Discovery when we're at our very best," Anglim says. "Like Planet Earth itself, it was all about showing you stuff in ways you've never seen before."

As a television event, Planet Earth got a lift from its home medium as well. PHD picked up off-net time on the broadcast networks in the week leading up to the series premiere, buying time on Fox's American Idol, CBS' Survivor, NBC's Heroes and ABC's Grey's Anatomy. At a cool $1.7 million, a 30-second spot also ran during ABC's presentation of the 79th annual Academy Awards.

Magazines also played a role. Most significantly, perhaps, for the first time ever, Discovery bought space in National Geographic. "We worked on that one for quite a while," Dean says.

When all was said and done, the media buy brought viewers to Discovery in droves. Over the course of its run, Planet Earth reached 65 million viewers, or 5.1 million per episode. Excluding sports or news specials, it was the most-watched cable event of the century.

"We got everything and more out of the campaign," Anglim says. "Even though we're in that $25 million category, our exposure was worth twice that. We were everywhere."

Anthony Crupi is a senior editor covering cable TV for Mediaweek.



Spending $10-25 Million: Carat

By Steve McClellan

A couple of years ago, Reebok realized it had a problem. It wasn't that consumers disliked the athletic-shoe brand. It was worse: people didn't care about it one way or another. "They didn't love us or hate us," says Keith Lusby, global account director over the brand at media shop Aegis Media North America/Carat. "They didn't know what we stood for."

After months of planning with Carat and the brand's creative agency, independent mcgarrybowen, Reebok unveiled its hoped-for solution in April 2007: a repositioning campaign that wasn't so much about any one product as about a new point of view about running, one in direct contrast to the elite-focused, run-your-hardest-and-sweat-blood-doing-it position Nike had carved out years earlier.

The campaign takes this year's Media Plan of the Year for Spending $10 Million to $25 Million. Other key players at Carat included Steve Ustaris, group media director; Erin Wilkinson, account director; Jeff Zannella, media supervisor; Nidhi Modi, group director, search engine marketing; and Renee Robertson, senior associate, search engine marketing.

Through its research, the agency found that the optimal pace for most joggers lets them to have a conversation while running-without gasping for every breath. "Keeping a light pace actually makes running more fun," Lusby says. "So we had this insight around which we created a point of view to challenge the category norm: you don't have to run to kill to yourself, that everybody has their own pace. Essentially, run easy."

Carat devised an innovative mix of digital and traditional media counter to "a media plan in the traditional sense of 'let's spend money, go out and find people and tell them something'," says David Stopforth, head of global media at Reebok. "We weren't trying to bend [consumers] to our will. Instead, it was about letting them take our brand and helping us build our point of view with the tools and technology available today."

The challenge for Carat was selecting just the right media to break through to the core target of casual runners in their twenties. Out-of-home and Internet made up the lion's share of the nearly $18 million budget, says Wilkinson.

"Online really drove the national conversation," says Wilkinson, while out-of-home executions were launched in key markets including New York, San Francisco, Miami, Boston and Los Angeles. The campaign also employed some spot TV later on.

Out-of-home was executed at the "street level, in sort of a guerrilla approach," says Wilkinson. Some boards featured "high-impact" images like a 50-foot, black-and-white poster of a vomiting marathoner, plastered at the entrance to New York's Holland Tunnel. Other outdoor executions were copy-centric, and their messages super-local. San Francisco signage advised passersby: "These hills will chew you up and spit you out. Run Easy."

After the initial outdoor rollout, a second phase was launched, designed to look like consumer reaction to the initial messages. In graffiti-style type, the copy "run + puke = crazy"-was scrawled across the Holland Tunnel poster, which drove consumers to the site goruneasy.com.

Other posters engaged consumers by "asking" what scenery they come across or what music they listen to while running. Consumers were invited to respond via text message; those who did got a reply directing them to the site, which enabled users to create jogging routes using Google Maps. The shop struck a deal with photo-sharing site Flickr that let users upload photos of scenes along their routes and post their favorite exercise tunes. Via the site, they also could form groups to compare notes with other users about running techniques. "We didn't think of it so much as a campaign but as a movement, and the Web site was the hub of the movement," Lusby says. Carat set up profiles on social networks like Facebook, which alone attracted 14,000 friends.

Another winning result: Long after the campaign officially wrapped in June 2007, the movement continued to grow. Lusby estimates that 20 percent of traffic to the Reebok site (to date totaling more than 1.7 million visitors) came after June. And visitors came from places as far-flung as Australia, where the brand didn't run the "Run Easy" campaign. With brand awareness, likability and purchase intent all spiking, plans call for the site goruneasy.com to remain active indefinitely.

Another boost from the campaign: Reebok's Stopforth says the company has reestablished ties with retailers that had been dormant -- this, even though the campaign did not target them.

So, one might say, not a bad run.

Steve McClellan is the media editor of Adweek.



Spending Under $10 Million: MediaHub/Mullen

By Shahnaz Mahmud

For apparel giant Timberland, the concept of eco-friendliness is hardly new. For four years, the tagline "Make It Better" has emphasized the company's love-mother-earth message. And with a collection of waterproof totes introduced last year, crafted from recycled billboards promoting the company's new Earthkeepers boot -- a product that itself is made from repurposed materials -- the brand continued to make the statement that it's most fashionable to be green.

But Timberland's commitment doesn't end with its products. The company also set out to leave the smallest footprint possible in its marketing efforts. For its newly hired media agency, Wenham, Mass.-based MediaHub at Mullen, part of IPG, that meant creating what was dubbed the first carbon-neutral media plan around the launch of Earthkeepers. The campaign captures this year's Media Plan of the Year in the Spending Less Than $10 Million category.

"Being able to push the envelope in marketing is a great thing to be a part of-in delivering RoI and also moving the environmental agenda," says Charlie Raynes, senior manager, global marketing at Timberland. "It's being a part of the answer, not the problem."

Tested in the Boston market from mid-October through December, the earth-friendly campaign emerged from measuring the energy required to power TV, radio and Web ad executions. Carbon dioxide emissions associated with the campaign were offset with wind power generated by the Jiminy Peak Mountain Resort in Western Massachusetts. "We wanted to donate the assets back into the market we were running the campaign in," says associate media director Erin Bilenchi.

Others at MediaHub behind the award-winning plan include Steve Calder, chief media officer; Shea Kelly, group media director; Kaitlin Bonner, media supervisor; Marianne King, media supervisor; Steve Kalb, director of broadcast; Kim Best, associate broadcast director; Bill Fusco, senior marketing analyst; Meghan Finneran, media supervisor; Nick Iuliano, media planner; Gina Preziosa, associate media director, Interactive Media; and Katie Thompson, senior media planner, Interactive Media.

In keeping with Timberland's core values, the plan incorporated earth-conscious elements throughout, right down to soy-based inks for the print portion. The radio push included an element dependent upon, well, the elements -- that is, Timberland promos would run only when rain or heavy winds were in the forecast.

Early-morning TV spots targeted consumers drawn to local weather reports, while ambient media saw the creation of five-foot-by-five-foot glass cubes filled with post-consumer waste including water bottles, plastic bags and other recylcables that go into making Earthkeepers.

Out-of-home executions included ads on subways and buses promoting the use of mass transit, as well as the domination of Boston's South Station rotunda. Emphasizing the footwear's use of recycled materials, the outdoor pieces featured eye-catching visuals like recycled bottles and tires in the shape of a boot. Ads placed throughout shopping malls were "a real opportunity to get people when they were in a retail mindset," says Bilenchi.

The agency also created a Timberland pop-up store, where consumers could interact with brand reps.

And tapping into Boston's famously rabid base of sports fans, Timberland ran TV spots during Boston Celtics games, as well as the emotionally charged Boston Red Sox World Series and the face-off between the New England Patriots and New York Giants.

After the plan's run, Timberland continued its resolve to create as little waste as possible with the creation of the billboard bags. Consider this: Each 14x18 bulletin produced 150 totes-700 in total-which meant less landfill fodder and also offset the use of countless throw-away paper and plastic bags. All other print pieces, including banners, trolley kings and pillars, were also recycled.

The campaign brought smashing results, driving Boston-area retail sales 30 percent. And online retailers reported selling out of Earthkeepers, despite the fact that the new line was promoted in just 2.1 percent of the country. The plan also generated a 55 percent bump in daily e-mail registration.

The client was so happy with the results that this fall the eco-centric plan will be extended to global markets including France, Italy and China.
  
Shahnaz Mahmud is media reporter for Adweek.



Spending $1 Million or Less: Spark Communications

By Bill Gloede

What do sports fans and investors in the equity markets have in common? Both tend to be competitive, they want to win, and some, by nature, like to gamble.
The Spark Agency's media plan on behalf of client E*Trade, the online brokerage, turned out to be that rare thing: a safe bet.

Part of Starcom MediaVest Group, Spark conducted proprietary research into a range of sports and their fans, turning up a match with E*Trade customers, particularly pro-football fantasy leagues. The campaign takes this year's Media Plan of the Year in the $1 Million Spending or Less category.

 "The folks that they [E*Trade] tend to attract are über competitive; they are on their own game," says Todd Kirby, Spark's director of research.

Other key players on the award-winning plan at Spark included Ken Zasky, president; Shelby Saville, svp, director; Karen Coleman, senior vp, director; and Miraj Parikh, broadcast investment director.

In its research, Spark found that managing a fantasy sports team was not unlike managing an investment portfolio.

"It was interesting to discover how many of the skills used in fantasy -- like picking the right players, building a strong team and playing the team strategically -- translate to the skills investors use to make real money," says Craig Shiffrin, senior marketing manager at E*Trade. "We found there were a lot of the same mentalities to draw upon. We knew our audience was there. And with our Super Bowl ads running, it just made sense."

The question was how to connect E*Trade with fantasy football leaguers. The problem was that, in the words of Parikh, "they are outspent by the competition."

Says Saville, "In the online brokerage business, everyone basically out shouts everyone else. They [E*Trade] can't outspend their competition, but they can have a larger presence."

With that in mind, the team at Spark approached the NFL and its NFL Network about developing a segment to appear on the channel's signature program, NFL Total Access, highlighting the performance of individual players in much the same way a business show details the performance of stocks. Dubbed the "E*Trade Fantasy Stock Report," the segment, carried live and hosted by the show's announcers, featured real players and real statistics and appeared as an integral part of the program.

"This was not about a creative campaign; this was about how do we get [the target audience] involved and engaged," says Seville. "We found that they were really the closest to the consumer." The original contract specified that the segment run twice.

That took care of the TV portion, but the client needed an online component as well.

"Almost everything we do is direct response, so we needed to find creative ways to incorporate direct response into this fantasy campaign," Shiffrin explains. So, the agency turned to CBS Sportsline and what Shiffrin calls its "cool new feature," Sticky Notes, which allows users to slap messages on a rival fantasy team site. "We put E*Trade buttons on those sticky notes, which helped us to measure the effectiveness of the campaign," says Shiffrin.

The concept worked so well that the original contract was bumped up to eight segments in the fourth quarter. NFL threw in the last game of the season (New York Giants vs. New England Patriots), which was carried on multiple channels, including NFL Network. That game overdelivered NFL audience estimates by 500 percent.

In terms of results, the client enjoyed a "major surge" in new accounts (76 percent greater than the typical E*Trade campaign), while response rates were quadruple the typical banner campaign, reports Shiffrin. "The campaign succeeded in positioning E*Trade as innovative and technology-driven, and the company saw good results from it."

Not bad for under a mil.

The key to the plan's success lay in the legwork. Says Spark president Zasky, "At Starcom MediaVest Group, everything is insights and research-driven. It was important that the research informed the decisions."

When asked whether E*Trade and Spark might repeat this program during the 2008 NFL season, Parikh said that while the client and agency had yet to seal a deal with media partners, "We'll likely do it again."

So, looks like another safe bet.

Bill Gloede writes Mediaweek's "Space & Time" column.



Best Use of National TV and Cable: Deutsch

By John Consoli

To differentiate itself from its broadcast and cable rivals, satellite provider DirecTV sought to promote its broad, exclusive sports and entertainment lineup and expansive high-definition content. It also wanted to differentiate itself in its marketing strategy, avoiding the traditional 30-second spot.

With agency Deutsch, DirecTV last year partnered with cable networks on a multiplatform media plan that resulted in the satellite operator picking up over 500,000 new subscribers over a six-month period and achieving its lowest subscriber churn in eight years. The campaign takes Media Plan of the Year for National Television and/or Cable.

Deutsch created unique executions that utilized the programs and talent featured on DirecTV, positioning the service as the "Ultimate TV Viewing Experience." Heading up DirecTV's creative, account planning and media chores, Deutsch put together a plan involving cable partners including USA Network, AMC, History Channel, FX and A&E.

"We went to the cable networks and asked them how we could immerse DirecTV into their shows, got their input, took it back to our client, discussed it, remolded it and came up with plans for each network," says Peter Gardiner, chief media officer at Deutsch.

"The secret sauce is that the creative, account planning and media departments at Deutsch are highly  collaborative  and we worked well together with the client," Gardiner says, adding that it is "in the cable networks' DNA" to collaborate on promotional opportunities beyond traditional ads.

Around USA drama Burn Notice, DirecTV sponsored a commercial-free presentation of the premiere episode. DirecTV also was integrated into the storyline of two Burn Notice episodes televised and streamed online, and was mentioned in promos for the show.

Around the AMC drama Mad Men, DirecTV sponsored the commercial-free presentation of the season-one finale. DirecTV also was presenting sponsor of a party to celebrate the finale. Meanwhile, it created a five-minute mini-documentary and 30-second vignettes featuring outtakes from the show and interviews with cast members on a DirecTV microsite, which invited users to sign up for a DirecTV newsletter and get special offers. Also, DirecTV sponsored History Channel's Ice Road Truckers in high definition, and created and sponsored 30-second vignettes about emerging technology seen in the show.

Michael Chiklis, star of the FX drama The Shield, appeared in DirecTV-sponsored segments that opened and closed that show's season premiere. Via interstitials, DirecTV offered viewers exclusive, behind-the-scenes footage featuring the cast, as well as interviews with the director and extra scenes.

And around A&E's reruns of The Sopranos, DirecTV created 60-second vignettes that recapped previous episodes and storylines and featured the show's stars.

"This was more of a quality play, not a quantity play," says Jon Gieselman, svp, advertising and public relations at DirecTV. "We wanted to project ourselves as a premium brand and immerse ourselves into energizing programming. We wanted to break through the clutter of traditional 30-second commercials. We wanted to get the consumer more involved with our brand. We tried to do it bigger and better. We wanted to project our ultimate media strategy."

Also from DirecTV, advertising director Josh Stern was instrumental in the award-winning plan.

At Deutsch, key players besides Gardiner included Karen DeLuca, svp, group media director; Megan Govin, associate media director; Frank Viola, media supervisor; Lauren Seigel, media planner; Scott Wolinsky, assistant media planner; Courtney Burke, senior vp, director of national buying; Lisa Pece, vp, associate media director; Vincent Merlino, national broadcast supervisor; Ari Tran, national broadcast buyer; and Rita Kandamkalam, assistant national broadcast buyer.

For DirecTV, the plan delivered big results. Gieselman reports that the satellite provider last year enjoyed a record year in subscriber growth. In the second half of the year alone, it added 500,000 new customers, a 17 percent hike year over year. The Deutsch-designed media plan, Gieselman says, was "a big stick in the bag."

Gardiner says the plan will continue throughout this year, adding that his agency and client DirecTV are exploring opportunities with other networks interested in promotions that think outside the 30-second-spot box.
 
John Consoli is a senior editor covering network TV for Mediaweek.



Best Use of Local TV and Cable: The Media Kitchen

By Richard Brunelli

One of the coolest things about today's consumer electronics is that they allow people to enjoy incredibly rich content pretty much whenever, wherever they want. From a family-friendly perspective, one of the not-so-cool things is that they allow people to watch whenever, wherever they want.

Thanks to the sophisticated range of media platforms out there, the days of the family unit sitting around the tube, enjoying a show together seem long past.

For electronics giant Panasonic Corp. of North America, the question was how to promote its products as contributing positively to the cohesion of the American family. So, last year it turned to its media agency The Media Kitchen, media arm of Kirshenbaum Bond + Partners, which devised an altruistic, homey multimedia effort it called "Bring Back Family Time" that would kick off what one of its creators calls a "social movement" and would go on to capture this year's Media Plan of the Year for Best Use of Local TV and/or Cable.

In a space of 28 feverish days and a budget just over $4 million, The Media Kitchen cooked up a campaign to make Panasonic the brand of choice for families trying to stay connected in the digital age.

"We pulled everyone together -- the promotional team, the strategic planners, the creatives -- and we all started gravitating toward this set of ideas about making Panasonic the instrument not only for delivering top-of-the-line consumer products but also bringing families together to enjoy them," says Jack Southerland, associate media director at Media Kitchen and a key architect of the plan. "To be honest, it was a nightmare at the time, but it was more than worthwhile when it all came together." In addition to Southerland, Media Kitchen's winning team included president Barry Lowenthal; group director Imir Leveque; senior strategist Gloria Chan; strategist Charles Meech; and associate strategist Brooke Reno.

The campaign played out in family-oriented programming like America's Funniest Home Videos and Extreme Makeover: Home Edition on 11 ABC stations in the largest markets. Sunday evenings, traditionally the prime night for HUT levels, was branded "Panasonic Family Night." The TV element included four-second interstitials promoting ABC shows as well as the Panasonic name; 10-second tune-in mentions; 15-second "promercials" wedding network programming with Panasonic products; and 30-second humorous ads that had family members reintroducing themselves to one another. The TV tendrils were tied to station Web sites as well as LivinginHD.com, which showed family members interacting with Panasonic products.

Elsewhere on the Web, Panasonic sponsored family-focused content on sites including AmericanGreetings.com, Parents.com and Child.com. On the print side, a schedule in USA Today reminded parents of the importance of spending quality time with their kids. The ads, which ran on Fridays, were directed at business travelers.

It was exactly what the client was looking for, says Christine Amirian, vp at Panasonic, adding that event marketing as well as online elements helped bring the campaign to a national audience beyond that of the ABC stations. Media Kitchen, she says, "worked hard to make this campaign come to life. They provided sound counsel and creative-yet-strategic thinking and were a true partner in making this campaign a success."

The campaign proved a big buzz builder, with about 30 percent tracked by Nielsen Online reacting positively to the campaign. The push was even more effective at point of purchase. For the week ended Nov. 17, 2007, at the height of the campaign, more than 58 percent of plasma TV sold in the U.S. were made by Panasonic, marking the best sales period in the company's history.

Panasonic will bring back the campaign in fourth quarter this year. "'Bring Back Family Time' was more than just a media campaign -- it became almost like a social movement that had a life of its own," says Southerland. "And it really shows that the people at The Media Kitchen will take an idea and work it for all it's worth for our clients."

Richard Brunelli is a contributing writer for Mediaweek.



Best Use of Print: Maxus

By Lucia Moses

For the better part of 15 years, Welch's behaved like a typical packaged goods company when it came to marketing, setting itself apart with network TV ads featuring tots espousing the great taste of its 100 percent grape juice.

But with sales down, growing competition from other beverages and mounting concern about the high sugar content of fruit juices, the Welch's message was losing its punch with young moms. "We had a traditional CPG approach: heavy on TV, talk to as many people as possible, say as many great things as possible," says Chris Heye, vp, marketing at Welch's.

But, he adds, "As the consumer changed, the message wasn't working as well."
Upon being tapped as marketing chief in April 2007, Heye set out to overhaul the brand's message and to rethink how it was delivered. What followed was a campaign that emphasized Welch's "2x antioxidant power of OJ" attributes via a print execution that put the juice literally on the tips of millions of consumers' tongues. The campaign earned agency Maxus Global this year's Media Plan of the Year in the Print category.

"Chris wanted us to really, really push the envelope," says Lauren Scorsone, who shepherded the plan at Maxus, a boutique agency under GroupM. An offshoot of MindShare, Maxus' growing client list includes Miramax, Cellular South and Rubbermaid.

Others involved in the campaign at Maxus include Jessica Gordon, planning supervisor; Danielle Brown, planner; Lukeisha Paul, associate print director; and Justin Williams, print planner.

Scorsone, Maxus senior partner and strategic planning director, says that to rid Welch's of its "white picket fence" image, she knew she had to go to "places that traditional brand was not feeling that comfortable," conscious of the fact that "we're not going to break through with just a page."

The first objective was to create an ad that would get people talking. After looking at other interactive ads, including those that included fridge magnets or emitted noises, creative partner JWT found First Flavor, which developed a lickable ad using "Peel 'n Taste" taste strips that dissolve on the tongue like a breath strip. First Flavor already had snagged buzz with a mojito-flavored ad to promote CBS' series Cane that ran in Wenner Media's Rolling Stone last September.

For Welch's, the strips were used to invite people to sample the bold taste of the famed juice. This, while the copy touted Welch's antioxidant properties. "We know they're going to open the ad," Heye explains. "Whether they peel and look at it, we know they're going to look at our health message."

There were plenty of considerations at the outset. Would the ad hold up in the production process? Would people feel comfortable licking an ad? And with a total budget of less than $10 million, would the ad be worth the cost? With those concerns in mind, Scorsone and her team chose the granddaddy of celebrity weeklies, Time Inc.'s People, which had experience handling creative units using materials ranging from sound chips to bubble wrap that require extra care in the production and distribution process. People had the added benefit of reaching massive numbers of young moms, the Welch's target.

"Print was a very effective way to reach Gen X; People was a good way to do that. They have strong, strong numbers," says Heye. Conventional print ads also ran in smaller-circulation books like Conde Nast's Cookie and Domino, as well as traditional parenting magazines. The People ad appeared in the Feb. 18, 2008, issue that graced newsstands over President's Day weekend, timing that was fortuitous. That holiday-weekend issue featured Britney Spears on the cover, ensuring a large audience.

The ad was more successful than Welch's could have imagined, sparking a flurry of news coverage from The Wall Street Journal to Good Morning America to The Huffington Post.

"The Journal picked it up, and it just became a frenzy from there," Scorsone says. An estimated 16 million consumers said they'd heard the Welch's name the month after the ad ran, which Heye says was "extremely high for us." Better yet, Welch's enjoyed a 10 percent sales bump during the run of the campaign.

People publisher Paul Caine says that as advertisers look to break out of the clutter, executions like Welch's that break the mold will become more common. "There's definitely a new direction in creative units," he says. "We're hearing from marketers, it's challenging to get a large enough audience. Where do you turn to differentiate?"

Lucia Moses is a senior editor covering print media for Mediaweek.



Best Use of Radio: Horizon Media

By Katy Bachman

The most creative element in radio these days isn't the DJ, the playlist or the format -- it's the advertiser. Take this year's Media Plan of the Year for Radio, awarded for the second straight year to Horizon Media and The NBC Agency. Their promotion of the premiere of NBC prime-time, hour-long comedy Chuck was anything but a typical schedule of spots.

Taking product placement via radio to new heights, Horizon arranged to buy all the commercial time on stations the day of the premiere. What's more, five Contemporary Hit Radio stations in five top markets were rebranded as Chuck FM. "One of the key things for us is to find the marriage between media and message," says Tim Farish, vp, media planning at The NBC Agency. "We wanted to make our campaign content rather than an ad, so that listeners would not turn the dial."

By taking over the station and all its commercial spots for the day, Horizon effectively blocked out the competition from many of the nation's top radio stations targeting the 18-49 year-old demo on one of the biggest days for the fall season launch. Listeners tuning into Clear Channel stations in New York (WHTZ-FM), Los Angeles (KIIS-FM), Chicago (WKSC-FM), San Francisco (KYLD-FM) and Philadelphia (WIOQ-FM) couldn't miss the message broadcast eight minutes every hour, all day long. The plan delivered more than 22 million impressions and helped the Chuck premiere draw big numbers: NBC's ratings in the time period grew 16 percent year over year.

"The media marketplace is total chaos and total clutter. The best and most effective way is to block everyone else out," says Cherie Capelle, vp, brand group director at Horizon. Also involved were Amy Berke, svp, managing director of brand strategy; and Carrie Kreisberg, associate brand group director.

Horizon and The NBC Agency first began stretching the boundaries of radio three years ago with the premiere of My Name is Earl, taking out an hour of commercial-free radio. Then, to engage listeners in 2006 to promote Heroes, the team used unorthodox ad lengths with a classic theater-of-the-mind creative approach in a day-long schedule, winning last year's Media Plan of the Year for Radio. "We used to think a commercial-free hour was groundbreaking," says Capelle. "We don't want to be status quo; we want to set the bar for everyone else."

Leading up to the Chuck premiere on Sept. 27, radio audiences were teased that "Chuck is taking over the station." On premiere day, eight minutes of NBC content of varying lengths aired on Chuck FM, including audio clips of the show and tune-in information for Chuck and other NBC shows.

Launching Chuck FM was no small feat. "It was like we were producing an event," says Horizon's Berke. "We were asking Clear Channel to change call letters and brand identity for a day. They had to sell through the concept internally." And of course, there was no benchmark for how to price the concept.

Not every radio group Horizon approached would take on a campaign that blurred the lines between content and advertising. Programmers at each station had to buy into the concept. Such a campaign also taxes traffic systems, which, to accommodate the plan, must deviate from standard clocks and schedules.

"It was worth it," says Greg Glenday, executive vp, marketing solutions at Clear Channel Radio, referring to the three to four months the plan took to prepare. "Campaigns like this put radio on a different plane and show that we can be flexible with enough lead time."

It was a daunting process to create 100 minutes of content and ads that blended tune-in information with content that would engage the audience. Spots varied from 30 seconds to two minutes. Some were straight tune-in spots, but more often than not the content sounded like a radio show with fake giveaways, phone-ins, traffic reports and banter with Chuck stars.

On-air personalities also got involved, making for an organic programming experience that was more entertainment than commercial. "We had Ryan Seacrest [KIIS host] talking about it. We didn't want it to be just like advertising. There was much less interruption than the listeners were normally used to," Glenday says.

"In my four years of being in charge of radio creative, this was unprecedented," says Fran Solomita, creative director of radio promotion at NBCU. The process took three weeks to conceptualize, write and record.

"I hear a lot of trailer spots on the radio. Most are over the top, pushing the marketing and way too aggressive," says Solomita. "When all those ads, one after another, yell at you, it becomes white noise. I just wanted to have someone talk to me."

Horizon is working on an encore. Says Glenday, "We're already talking to [Horizon] about crazy stuff for fall."

Katy Bachman is a senior editor covering radio, local TV and out-of-home for Mediaweek.



Best Use of Out-of-Home: MediaCom

By Katy Bachman

MediaCom's out-of-homemedia plan for the Volkswagen Jetta proves that an outdoor ad doesn't necessarily need to be high-tech to be interactive and engaging.

Working with its creative counterpart Crispin Porter + Bogusky, MediaCom last year strategically placed a conventional billboard depicting the life-sized front end of a Jetta in the right field of several baseball stadiums.

The team behind the award-winning plan looked to capitalize on the Jetta's safety image, the model having snagged the coveted 4-star front-impact rating from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The board literally conveys the message "safe happens" when a baseball player collides with the ad as he goes after a fly ball. The uniquely effective execution takes this year's Media Plan of the Year for Out-of-Home.

Avoiding the rather overexposed imagery of crash-test dummies, VW had, in a TV campaign a year earlier, trumpeted the safety message in memorable spots that featured twentysomethings engaged in light-hearted conversation while driving along only to end up in head-on collisions, but emerging unharmed because they were in a Jetta. In 2007, VW looked for another impactful means of grabbing the attention of the hard-to-reach young adult demo.

"We were looking for unique ways to talk about safety. Everyone has seen crash-test dummies so many times," says David Fasola, senior partner, group director at MediaCom. "We needed to keep the message fresh and top of mind but not spend a lot of money. We had to find a way to keep VW's safety buzz going." Also key to the plan were MediaCom partner David Bolger and Andrew Miller, Kinetic's Destination Media Group.

VW's outdoor ad most certainly stood out. While most ads alongside featured simply the advertiser's logo, the VW execution was an event waiting to happen.  Besides a picture of the Jetta, the ad featured four stars and the line "Front Impact Rating."

MediaCom and Crispin bet that the ad's placement, in right field, would yield a home run for VW, creating not just an exciting image for fans in the stands, but a perfect set-up for sports photographers hungry for visuals. All MediaCom needed to maximize impressions was for a fly ball to go straight for the Jetta board at New York's Shea Stadium, Rangers Ballpark in Arlington, Texas, and U.S. Cellular Field in Chicago.

As it turns out, shutterbugs couldn't resist. The image created when player met billboard was so compelling it netted VW an estimated $4 million worth of free exposure on air, on the Web and in print, delivering 290 million total impressions. Sports sections in major dailies including the Chicago Tribune and New York Post picked up an Associated Press shot of Angels' center fielder Gary Matthews Jr. trying to catch a solo homer by the Rangers' Brad Wilkerson.

Sports Illustrated published the picture on its Web site, while local TV stations picked it up in their sports segments. The ad also won the Outdoor Advertising Association of America's Obie award in the auto category.

"It was a simple idea, a simple shot, but you saw the VW logo and, of course, the all-important four-star impact rating. It just seemed like the stars lined up," says Dave Swartz, art director at Crispin. "The media became part of the creative."

Location has always been an important element of any out-of-home ad, but in the case of the VW execution, it made all the difference between simple exposure and real engagement with a target audience known for being easily distracted.

"With media fragmenting, it's harder to reach people in a mass way," says Fasola. "Younger people are online, but it's difficult to find out which Web site they're on. But we know they're out and about and we can reach them there."

Adds Stephen Freitas, chief marketing officer for OAAA, "Context has become a factor when considering some out-of-home programs. Planners are often interested in knowing what's near a particular out-of-home location and how the message can be incorporated into the environment. Agencies are thinking through the entire placement of an ad, breaking the frame and exploring the entire space." One could say the billboard really knocked one out of the park, not only for VW but for out-of-home creative overall.

Katy Bachman is a senior editor covering radio, local TV and out-of-home for Mediaweek.



Best Use of Dgital: Neo@Ogilvy

By T.L. Stanley

To inflict bumps, bruises and assorted contusions on your friends and loved ones would, in most cases, be considered cruel, perhaps even sadistic. But as part of Neo@Ogilvy's Share the Scare campaign for Six Flags theme parks, such brutality was all in the name of good fun -- and good marketing.

To promote the popular parks, the agency cooked up The Defacer, a widget enabling users to give monster makeovers to their friends via snapshots and virally spread their handiwork. It was the centerpiece of a six-week online campaign that cost less than $500,000 but which contributed to a 24 percent year-over-year attendance boost at Six Flags' Halloween-themed Fright Fest. The campaign takes this year's Media Plan of the Year for Digital, one of two winners in the on-fire Digital category.

Six Flags and its agency tapped into a holiday -- once strictly kids' stuff -- that has grown into something of a national obsession among adults as well as youngsters. Last Halloween, consumers spent north of $5 billion on candy, decorations and costumes (for themselves and their pets).

Even with competition from local haunted houses, hayrides, football games and other amusements, Fright Fest's revenue grew 16 percent in fall 2007 versus the prior year.

Its raft of online tactics could change the way Six Flags markets itself in the future. "We learned there's tremendous opportunity for us in the digital space," says Jackie Gagne, director, direct marketing at Six Flags. "We'll still use traditional media, but digital will become a bigger part of the mix. It lets us really engage the customer and get them to interact with the brand."

That's not so simple when two distinct demos are targeted. In this case, Six Flags wanted to convey to moms the family-friendly environment of the parks, a message the marketer has honed in recent years even as it spoke to a younger set that's grown up on gross-out fare like Fear Factor, Saw and Hostel.

Neo@Ogilvy's strategy involved a range of digital elements, including user-generated content, social networking, viral elements, display ads, e-mail blasts, blogs and electronic newsletters. A partnership with Google linked Fright Fest with keyword searches, and also led to a click-and-play video featuring the parks' Coffin of Fear attraction. Display ads for Fright Fest fanned out from kid-skewing Neopets and Nick Jr. to college student-targeted Facebook.

Kicking off last September, e-newsletters went out to moms, who typically are in charge of Halloween activities, with crafts and recipes to get them in the spooky spirit. The newsletters directed consumers to the Six Flags Web site, where they could pick their poison, so to speak, by choosing different levels of "scare" for their user experience. "Not So Scary" was designed for moms and their little ones, who could print pictures of Looney Tunes characters dressed in Halloween garb and color them with crayons, while "Pretty Scary" featured The Defacer.

The Defacer, created by Freewebs, racked up an interaction rate of 37 percent, with 38,000 page views. The widget, which had a prominent place on Google, was embedded into blogs and social networks. Sporting the tagline "This is going to get ugly," The Defacer gave users defacing options like bumps and gashes.

"We wanted to make sure that what we did digitally would reflect the experience that people have in the parks," says Sean Muzzy, Neo@Ogilvy's senior partner, media director. "It shows that there's something for everyone in the family." Also instrumental in the plan from Neo@Ogilvy were Grace Ciaccia and Traci Almer, media supervisors; Emily Henderson, search supervisor; Gina Cavallo, media planner; Bruce Henderson and Witold Riedel, partners/creative directors; Patrick Bennett and Dave Keener, associate creative directors; Christine Cappelli, art director; Aarti Thiagarajan, senior partner/executive marketing director; Alex Parraga, partner, management supervisor; Melissa Lentz, account supervisor; Marta Requeijo, account executive; Zoe Chen, assistant account executive; and Kate Kehoe, senior partner/group director, project management.

The idea for the widget grew from an online tactic the Neo@Ogilvy team employed earlier last year, a call for user-generated videos of people screaming their heads off. After the shrieking good response to that promotion, Muzzy relates, executives decided to take it a step further in support of Fright Fest. The team also sought to jump on the hot element of social networking by reaching out to Six Flags' MySpace friends, inviting them to upload photos of their trips to the park and update the site's skins with Fright Fest images.

"The point was to make all the communications entertaining in and of themselves," Muzzy says. "People spend more time and get more involved, and that's mutually beneficial."
 
T.L Stanley is a contributing writer for Mediaweek.



Best Use of Digital: ZenithOptimedia

By T.L. Stanley

To support the launch the Blackbird002, Hewlett-Packard's PC-based gaming system whose price tag ranges from $2,500 to nearly $10,000, agency ZenithOptimedia targeted the most ardent, affluent gamers, securing a front-and-center spot at their favorite virtual hangouts. The result, says H-P, was a campaign that contributed 23 percent of sales. The work takes Media Plan of the Year for Digital, one of two winners in that burgeoning category this year.

ZenithOptimedia's goal was to get a select group of hardcore gamers excited about a turbo-charged, high-end gaming PC they'd never even seen, from a company that had no track record in the category.

No sweat -- not if one seeded the product with influential bloggers, sponsored a wiki to stoke the conversation, and reached out via fanboy hotspots like Xbox 360 Live and a couple of dozen of the most popular gaming titles. That, plus a contest challenging gamers to make mini-movies about the brand, supplying them with plenty of their favorite game clips along with brand assets ready for their Machinima close-up. (For the uninitiated, Machinima is an animation-production technique.)

"We knew that TV would be a waste of money and that we needed a laser-focused approach," says Paul Campbell, marketing strategist for H-P's new gaming division. "We had to get the word out quickly to the right people in an authentic voice."

The question was how best to reach the target of hardcore gamers, each of whom typically spend upwards of 11 hours a week playing videogames -- and when they're not are often gabbing with their fellow gamers about their passion.

"We wanted to inject the Blackbird into conversations that gamers were already having," says Deidra Bodkin, ZenithOptimedia's vp, group media director. "And we wanted to start conversations about the product." Others at ZenithOptimedia key to the plan were Courtney Kile, associate media director; Mara Golden, media supervisor; Regan Przybyl, media planner; and Patric Fenton, assistant media planner.

There were a number of firsts associated with the campaign. The Blackbird campaign would be ZenithOptimedia's entrée to the world of gamers, as it marked its first-ever gaming ad. And for H-P, this was an entirely new product category, a new brand debut and a different distribution model.

The computer marketer, feeling the heat from rival Dell, had snapped up VoodooPC in fall 2006, setting off much chatter in the gaming community. Voodoo, a brand revered by serious gamers, gave immediate cred to H-P's dive into PC gaming. The Blackbird, released in fall 2007, was the first product to be developed with HP's new sibling. The campaign, with a relatively modest $2.6 million budget, also generated free publicity via the likes of GameSpot and YouTube.

Highlights included hosting Blackbird.wiki.com, where well-known gamers like Morgan Webb, Kevin Rose and Joi Ito blogged about the product. They had been handed the Blackbird in fall 2007, before it was made available to the public.

The site quickly racked up 70 posts and 3,000 comments.

A partnership with GamesMedia gave birth to a Machinima contest, where gamers were invited to mashup images of the Blackbird and top-selling games.

A link with Xbox 360 put Blackbird imagery and other data on the gaming destination, generating 134,000 downloads with a 1.9 percent click-through rate (traditional benchmarks are somewhere around 0.15 percent, per ZenithOptimedia).

Ads and billboards promoting the gaming system were embedded into popular games including Transformers, as well as action, racing and sports games. Goodby Silverstein & Partners, San Francisco, supplied creative.

H-P, a longtime advertiser in Cartoon Network's Adult Swim block and on Spike TV, leveraged that relationship to snag some branded entertainment bits. Spike TV worked the Blackbird into its Men of Action interstitials, while Adult Swim created custom 30-second spots that aired during its popular, male-skewing animated programs.

Overall, the digital part of the campaign spurred well over 400,000 clicks to hp.com/blackbird and a 0.25 percent click-through rate, a 40 percent bonus over H-P's target.

And the campaign gave H-P a roadmap for the future.

"It was very challenging to build this all from the ground up," says Campbell. "But when our next products are ready to come out, we think we'll know what to do."

T.L. Stanley is a contributing writer for Mediaweek.



Best Use of Mobile: GSD&M

By Mike Shields

When trying to persuade a young man or woman that they should spend the next several years of their lives working in, on or around jet planes, nothing does the job quite like letting them see the actual aircraft.

That's why United States Air Force recruiting events staged at high schools, state fairs and the like are crucial. When a potential pilot can reach out and touch an F-16, that's far more powerful than any TV spot or Web banner. The tricky part is keeping dazzled attendees dazzled after the event. "Usually, the kid is really excited, and then he gets back home and there is a gap," explains Travis Scoggins, account supervisor at Austin, Texas-based GSD&M Idea City. "This is about bridging that gap."

Idea City's USAF strategy, which landed the agency Media Plan of the Year for Mobile Media, sought to keep the lines of communication open with would-be recruits. "Our model is focused on the decision-making process," says media director Noelle Newby. "Given the needs that a recruit has as they go through a decision-making process, mobile fills things in along the path." Also involved with the campaign was associate media director L.J. Kobe.

At its events, the USAF invited attendees to download videos, wallpaper, ringtones and other custom content -- 17 different elements in all -- to their mobile phones. Even more revolutionary were the various ways recruits could get the content. Signage placed throughout the events prompted visitors to send a variety of SMS short codes (i.e., text messages) to receive information and/or videos detailing specific USAF careers. And with the help of mobile specialist firm ipsh, Idea City borrowed a tactic rarely seen in the U.S. but that's increasingly popular in Asia: quick response (QR/2D) code messaging.

Attendees whose phones sported special software could snap a picture of a bar code that provided direct access to USAF promotional material, while those with Bluetooth earpieces could get special audio messages inviting them to download content.

USAF staff instructed prospects on using the technology, important considering that the average mobile user, even at the young end of the spectrum, isn't likely to be acquainted with the likes of bluecasting and QR/2D.

The USAF, of course, isn't going after your average 18-year-old. Idea City chose mobile, with all its cool bells and whistles, in an effort to reach a particularly tech-savvy audience, using the medium to communicate the message that the Air Force is the high-tech branch of the military where the sharpest technological minds belong. "We wanted to go after the tinkerers in the space," says Scoggins. "A person who uses all this [technology] is the perfect person for the Air Force."

Not every "tinkerer" makes it to an Air Force event, and to reach those prospects Idea City crafted a complementary execution. "We've done quite a bit of mobile in the past, so we've got a lot of lessons learned," says Kobe. "For this plan, we really wanted to refine that [tinkerer audience]. Where are these 16-to-24-year-olds, and what are they doing on their phones?"

Idea City tapped MTV and Comedy Central, whose mobile offerings would end up driving the lion's share of traffic. The plan included banners on each network's WAP site, 15-second ads during long-form content on the nets' linear mobile channels and short video spots within mobile VOD content.

Solomon Masch, director, emerging media for MTV Networks Digital Advertising, says given the nascent nature of mobile, to have a client looking to exploit all the different touchpoints is rare. The Air Force is "pretty aggressive in the mobile space as compared to a lot of other brands," he says.

In fact, this year the USAF upped its mobile budget. This, as the agency has added more sites to be part of the campaign. And new tactics include an option enabling prospects to text their Zip Codes to locate recruiting stations. "Differentiating the Air Force is so important," says Newby. "All the armed forces are going after the same recruit. This is about finding a space we can really own."

Mike Shields is a senior editor covering digital media for Mediaweek.



Best Use of Nontraditional Media: Starcom

By Alan Frutkin

When toymaker Lego sought to extend its reach among its primary consumer base of boys aged 6-12, the Danish company and agency Starcom USA partnered with cable giant Comcast to create a one-month trial run of a video-on-demand channel that registered almost 1 million views, making it this year's choice for Best Use of Nontraditional Media.

The idea came about after the client and Starcom researched the core demo, finding that young boys consume media far differently than they did 10 or even five years ago.

"Boys are seeking out content that they want, and getting it on their own terms," says Charles Rasmussen, associate media director at Starcom. "That's powerful information in light of linear TV, where viewers are limited to what's on the air." What's more, Rasmussen adds, the VOD space was of particular interest to Starcom because "as opposed to other platforms, boys are more receptive to brand messages in this arena."

But Lego didn't care only about kids' receptivity to its message. "Sure, kids are in control in the VOD arena, and they get to watch programming on their own schedule, but it's also a platform that can be parentally controlled and endorsed," says Chuck McLeish, Lego's director of marketing, planning and integration. "In many cases, parents have equally strong feelings about the Lego brand as do their kids, and we felt it was important that they could feel safe that the content we were providing was appropriate for their children."
Partnering with Comcast was a no-brainer, says Beth Doyle, Starcom's associate director of video innovations. As the largest VOD provider, Comcast reaches about 13 million VOD households, she points out. "Based on scale alone, it would have been enough reason to partner with Comcast," she says.

Other key Starcom players were Dan Kopec, director; Tracey Scheppach, video innovations director; Gina Broderick, director; Laura Bukowski, director; Erin Houg, associate director; Meghan O'Keefe, supervisor; Chris Thiele, associate; and Kristin Ritter, associate.

Titled Lego TV, the VOD channel was somewhat of an anomaly in the arena. In the first place, a toy manufacturer like Lego typically would attach itself to VOD content in the form of pre-roll, mid-roll or post-roll. "To have the Lego content be the actual content that users are engaging with, that's definitely innovative," Doyle says.

Also, the major players in the VOD space were all established providers of children's content, among them Nickelodeon, Disney Channel, PBS, Cartoon Network and Discovery Kids. For most start-ups in the space, it might have taken years and millions of dollars to be able to compete. But with an existing Web site, its own magazine and the Lego club, the client boasted so many assets that little needed to be done to get the VOD content up and running.

"We have a rather extensive vault of entertainment content already," says McLeish. "From various storytelling type initiatives, animated movies, moviemaking contests and user-generated fan content, we had always looked for the means and ways to further distribute that content."

Despite those assets, the channel's success came as something of a surprise for Lego. Having never done such a project, executives at the company had no benchmarks by which to judge success or failure. "We didn't really know what to expect," admits Mike McNally, Lego's director of brand relations. "But we're thrilled with the response, and it has us now excited to explore other opportunities to reach kids."

If there's one word that sums up the plan, it's collaboration. "The sharing of our companies' collective objectives for a partnership resulted in a solution-based approach to building the strategic framework, which became the vision for establishing Lego TV," says Bill Clifford, director of strategic alliances at Comcast. "The success of the campaign can be attributed to the collective notion that we all believed the inherent Lego brand qualities lend themselves to an engaging consumer experience when offered via unique digital distribution channels."

McLeish says Lego is in talks with Comcast about creating a longer-term VOD windo ranging from perhaps three to six months, as well as creating more original content.

As collaborative as Lego TV was, the credit for its success ultimately lies with the client, says Starcom's Rasmussen. The one million views registered on Lego TV for December 2007 translate to about 5 million minutes of viewership for the month, putting the channel on par with its top-name VOD channels. Says Rassmussen, "The fact that these numbers are comparable to the established brands in this field that provide entertainment television on a daily basis, I think that says a lot about the power of the Lego brand."

Alan Frutkin is West Coast senior editor for Mediaweek.