McCann Drives Off With the Diamond
The big winner at the 69th Direct Marketing Association Echo awards last month was McCann Relationship Marketing, New York. McCann took both a gold (automotive) and the diamond for its “Quest for Denali” campaign for GMC Trucks.
“The Quest for Denali” was developed to prevent customers who had been waiting for their Yukon sports utility vehicles from buying another brand. The mailings tried to convince the prospects to wait for the Yukon Denali, a vehicle that was still a prototype when the mailings began.
The series of mailings described the adventures of a Denali going, well, in quest of Denali, which is a real mountain in Alaska, near the Yukon. Each aspect of the adventure was related to some feature of the vehicle. For example, after describing how cold the mountain is, one piece went on to describe the heated seating in the vehicle.
The BTA Programme 1997 struck both gold and silver, taking a silver for financial products & services as well as the Gold Mailbox award. Designed to promote tourism from Holland to Great Britain, the Dutch multimedia campaign was developed by OgilvyOne Worldwide, Amsterdam.
However, the biggest winner of the year may be Phoneworks in-house campaign introducing its new interactive marketing system, SmartSpiffs.
Called “I Found Your Wallet,” it not only took a gold (business services) at the Echoes, but also won a “people’s choice” award at the DMA annual conference in San Francisco. And the campaign was awarded a Caples in the spring.
The mailing was a wallet, the contents of which-matchbook covers, lottery tickets, and the like-all related or included references to the product.
The remaining double award winner was Malchow Adams & Hussey, Washington D.C., for the “Swiss Banks-Nazi Gold Prospect” campaign for the World Jewish Congress. In addition to taking a silver for non-profit fundraising consumer/flat mail the program earned 1998 Henry Hoke Award.
