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April 7, 2003 - Strategy Media Archive
Best Media Plan

The winners
Media: It's strangely addictive

by Duncan Hood
page M 3

Welcome to the 2003 Best Media Plan issue of Strategy MEDIA. Apart from this introduction, we at Strategy didn't write a word of it, but it's probably the most compelling issue of the year.

That's because it's packed with the best media plans produced in 2002, and they are breathtakingly clever. You'd think that reading media plans would rank up there with reading actuary tables and doing your taxes, but in truth, they're strangely addictive. Anyone who takes pleasure in seeing difficult problems neatly tied up with elegant solutions, anyone who loves that "Aha!" moment when everything crystallizes, will get a kick out of these plans.

Besides, you have to find out how an ingenious Car Bait ad by Palmer Jarvis, which was carefully targeted at criminals, fooled an actual car thief into thinking the cops were on his tail, causing him to panic, run a red light and get picked up.

Thanks to all the media operations that took part by submitting even more plans than last year. You helped make Strategy's seventh annual Best Media Plan competition the best ever.

Duncan Hood, Editor

How the winners were chosen

This is how it worked: Any media planning operation or division in the country was allowed to submit as many plans executed during 2002 as it wanted. Each plan could only be entered in one of the eight categories listed below.

Each plan was sent out to three judges, and each judge awarded it a mark out of 10. The marks from the judges were then averaged. The plans with the highest marks in each category won those categories, and the second-highest scorers won "runner up" status.

There was no Best Plan Overall category. Rather, this award was reserved for the plan that received the highest score in any of the eight regular categories. The judges did not rate any plans that were worked on by their immediate operations. As much as possible, we distributed the plans so that judges wouldn't be marking plans involving their clients' direct competitors either. The judges worked independently, and none of the judges or participants knew who won the competition until the results were released to the public.

Our distinguished 24-member panel can be found on page 23. All volunteered to spend a weekend grading media plans. For this we offer our most sincere thanks.

The winners

Best plan overall

Winner

Carlsberg World Cup
Media: Labatt Media Group
Client: Labatt Breweries of Canada

Runner up

Bait Car
Media: OMD Canada - PJDDB group
Clients: ICBC; Vancouver Police Department

Best use of out-of-home

Winner

Carlsberg World Cup
Media: Labatt Media Group
Client: Labatt Breweries of Canada

Runner up

Volkswagen FCMM sponsorship
Media: PALM Publicité Marketing
Client: Volkswagen of America

Best use of radio

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