World PRO Winners with a Latin Beat
Argentine agency Stopromotion earned top honors in Latin American judging for the 1999 World PRO Awards of Excellence, held June 30 in Buenos Aires.
The agency’s Supercuenta Rio program, developed for Banco Rio de la Plata, and 10 other campaigns in as many categories were deemed outstanding by a Latin American jury of marketers, marketing editors, and promotion agency creative directors during the day-long judging session.
Stopromotion took home the coveted Best Promotion in the World award in 1998. Its regional win automatically qualifies the agency to vie for the top prize again this year.
The winners were selected from among 140 campaign entries, the highest number received in Latin America in the World PRO Awards’ nine-year history. Eighty entries were received from Argentina alone. Work was also submitted from Brazil (34 entries), Chile (16), and Mexico (10).
This year’s judging was hosted by Target and Tiempos de Promocion, two leading Buenos Aires-based marketing magazines. Senior-level representatives from the two magazines, World PRO co-sponsor Association of Promotion Marketing Agencies Worldwide (APMA), and promo supervised the 10-hour process.
Supercuenta Rio was designed to build loyalty among existing and new customers who had lost faith in Argentina’s banking system, which had deteriorated under 40 years of inflation and political problems. Banco Rio de la Plata and Stopromotion offered customers chances to win $20,000 in a daily drawing or $222,000 in a monthly pick for every $200 deposit they made over a nine-month period. The program was a huge success: Customers made $500 million in deposits representing 680,000 new accounts, a whopping 172 percent over forecast.
Stopromotion’s campaign and 10 other Latin American Gold award winners automatically become finalists in the World PRO Awards of Excellence, which will be selected in September by an international panel of judges. Sixty finalists (up to 16 from each of four regions) will emerge from regional competitions, which this year took place in Buenos Aires, Sydney (for the Asia-Pacific awards), Brussels (Europe) and the U.S. (North America). Judges will narrow the field to 16 Gold award winners, which will be named at a gala reception in their honor in Chicago on Sept. 14 during promo Expo ’99.
More than 500 entries were received worldwide this year, topping 1998’s total of 370 and making the World PRO Awards of Excellence the world’s largest international recognition program for professional marketers.
