Romania earns top ad award

  • 2004-09-02
  • By Julia Balandina
RIGA - A Romanian advertising agency, B.V. McCann-Erickson, won this year's prestigious creativity award at the fifth International Baltic advertising festival Golden Hammer, the largest professional advertisement forum in the Baltics.

Judges gave B.V. McCann-Erickson the top award for its "innovative, elegant and extraordinary solutions" in an advertisement involving sex and the HIV virus.
"This is the first time when the creativity case of the international advertising festival goes to Romania. Romania achieved excellent results - nine awards," said Peter Kandimaa, creative director for the Rakett agency.
The forum's other major award - the Media Folder of Golden Hammer, for the best media solution - went to Leo Express, an Estonian media agency, for promoting a new Rimi hypermarket.
"The jury decided that the idea to hide Rimi Hypermarket ads under a toilet paper roll - which were attached to each bus stop and were removable so people could see those ads - was the most original idea for outdoor advertising," informed Jim Bell, managing director of Results International Consulting.
"We found even more interesting the idea with the hidden cameras - to film people's behavior by the toilet paper rolls and then sent them via e-mail across Estonia to attract even more attention in society," he added.
Latvia OMD was recognized as the second best media agency, and ZOOM! as the second most creative agency.
"The professional and creative levels of the Baltic agencies have significantly increased, which is proved by the jury results - 16 Hammers for Latvia, 10 - for Estonia and 7 - for Lithuania. The biggest number of Golden Hammers (totaling five) traveled to Estonia," said Laila Ozolina, president of the festival.
The third-place award for media advertising went to Lithuania's TBWAVidevita, while Hungary's DDB Budapest took third in the creative category.
Some 114 advertising agencies from across Europe participated in the two-day festival.
"In five years the festival has established itself as the Baltic advertising forum," said Ozolina.