Exactly 650 entries filled five of the categories introduced just this year: email and instant messaging, mobile, search engine marketing, Web advertising, and Web development. Coming back for a return engagement were: alternative/insert media, catalog, direct mail, print, telemarketing, TV/video/radio, and “other.”

The 2007 awards were entered, categorized, judged, and presented in a dozen primary business categories. Eleven (11) winners went to nonprofit campaigns.

Hosted by “Deal or No Deal” emcee and comedian Howie Mandel, last evening's awards were presented at a gala at Chicago 's historic Union Station during the DMA07 Exhibition & Conference, the six-day marketing event of the year, which concludes tomorrow at McCormick Place West .

"The campaigns that we honored with ECHO Awards excel across the board — in creative, strategy, and quantifiable results,” said Mitchell Lieber, president of Lieber & Associates and chairman of the DMA International ECHO Award Committee. “Among the winners, there are outstanding integrated campaigns, great direct mail, and very smart employment of data and digital media — and they all produced impressive results. Our winners represent the ideals of ECHO — the best direct marketing principles applied to all of today's channels in smart ways. In winners we often see very intelligent strategies, executed with beautiful creative as well as cutting-edge analytics and technology to produce advertising that moves the meter. These ECHO honorees — from every corner of the globe — have truly produced the best direct marketing in the world. These ECHO-winning campaigns are proven to have the power to change a business. They are great work — that works great.”

The 2007 ECHO Awards were presented to campaigns from 26 countries: Argentina , Australia , Austria , Brazil , Canada , Czech Republic , Denmark , Germany , India , Ireland , Japan , Malaysia , Mexico , Netherlands , New Zealand , Norway , Peru , Philippines , Portugal , Romania , Spain , South Africa , Sweden , the UAE, the UK , and the US .

2007 SPECIAL INTERNATIONAL ECHO AWARDS

Diamond ECHO

The top award, for the campaign considered “best-in-show,” went to Draftfcb of New York, NY, for its campaign “Have a Ball. Or Two.” Draftfcb created the nonprofit consumer campaign on behalf of the Eagle, ID, Volunteer Fire Department.

Draftfcb created spokesbovine “Victimized Bull,” who lamented the loss of his family jewels that were being cooked for the charity event benefiting the fire department, the Rocky Mountain Oyster Feed. The Internet campaign that generated thousands of hits on the department's Web site and YouTube offended the mayor so much she threatened to cancel the circa-1950 all-you-can-eat benefit — spurring television, wire service, and newspaper stories. However, consumers embraced the angst-ridden spokesbovine's cause, and spread word of his campaign far beyond the small Idaho town.

Eagle, ID's fire department is completely volunteer and relies each year on one event, the Rocky Mountain Oyster Feed, to raise funds for equipment, training, and other expenses. Rocky Mountain oysters are battered, deep-fried bull testicles, which provided the creative team with lots of material. Seen humorously from the perspective of the outraged bull, the campaign was designed for television, radio, and a Web site to heavily promote the event and draw in people from surrounding communities. The event broke all attendance records, raised ticket sales 24 percent over the previous year, and increased profits 64 percent.

Search Marketing Award

This all-new special ECHO Award lauds the best campaign in one of the fastest-growing direct marketing specialties: search engine marketing. As such, the inaugural award earned by SearchAdNetwork of Denver, CO, is appropriately named “Set Your Sites on a Target Audience.” Starz Entertainment of Englewood, CO, set its sights on this publishing/entertainment consumer campaign and came up a big winner.

Starz Entertainment wanted to register new users for Vongo, an Internet-based movie download service. The company's campaign used time/day parting, which allowed the campaign to increase bids for top keywords by both time and day. It also experimented with demographic targeting, basing bidding strategies on searchers' genders. To eliminate additional variables, Starz kept the copy the same for all phases, regardless of when ads ran and whom they targeted. Using internal research that showed peak registration hours during weekend evenings, keyword bids were significantly increased during this period. The result was an impressive boost in weekend conversation rates from 19.84 percent to 27.18 percent.

Digital Award

The Digital Award is presented to a campaign that applied information technology (e.g., e-mail, search, mobile, the Web, and other digital channels) in a creative or innovative way to deliver outstanding results. To that end, Buena Vista Worldwide Home Entertainment of Burbank, CA, created an astonishing publishing/entertainment consumer campaign for True North Inc. of New York , NY , titled “Magic on Your Desktop.”

Buena Vista Worldwide Home Entertainment had remastered “Peter Pan” and wanted to promote the release of its two-disk Platinum Edition. Online ads and the official DVD Web site announced the upcoming launch and encouraged surfers to download the Tinker Bell Desktop Application. Once the application was downloaded and installed, Tinker Bell appeared every time a prospect's PC was turned on. She interacted with computer users and continued to remind them about the upcoming launch. On the day of the launch, Tinker Bell and other characters announced the DVD's availability. Nearly 116,000 people downloaded the application during the campaign.

A. Eicoff Broadcast Innovation Award

The A. Eicoff Broadcast Innovation Award recognizes a campaign for the most innovative use of the direct broadcast media. This award is chosen among the Gold, Silver, and Bronze ECHO Award winners in cooperation with the DMA Broadcast Council and the ECHO Committee.

For this year's award, Ryan iDirect of Wilton, CT, paid heed to the market power of Baby Boomer women who plan to stay beautiful — á la their contemporaries, glam goddess Ellen Barkin of “Oceans 13” and other movies, Katie Couric of the CBS Evening News, and Oprah Winfrey. Hence, ECHO honors their “Dove Pro-age” product manufacturing and distribution consumer campaign for Unilever/Dove of Greenwich , CT.

To serve an aging American population, Unilever developed Dove Pro-age for 50-plus women. Promoting the philosophy that beauty has no age limit, the company developed a Web site that gained added strength from publicity around Dove's banned TV ads. An email campaign plus public relations efforts, direct mail, and television, radio and print ads drove visitors to the site. Visitors could view the banned ads, which showed nude women over 50, as well as hear candid reactions to the ads from women in their age group. Registered users could also request samples online. The site's “pro-aging” philosophy drew nearly as many visitors in eight weeks as were expected in all of 2007.

US Postal Service Gold Mailbox Award

The campaign that earns the USPS Gold Mailbox Award, which is sponsored by the US Postal Service (USPS), employs mail in a ground-breaking way. Arc Worldwide/Leo Burnett Advertising of Kuala Lumpur, Wilayah Persekutuan , Malaysia , created a business and consumer services B-to-B campaign titled “The Greatest Show on Earth” that broke such ground for their client, the Direct Marketing Association of Malaysia (DMAM) of Kuala Lumpur , Wilayah Persekutuan , Malaysia .

DMAM set out to promote its annual direct marketing award show in a country where agencies often discount direct marketing's value, since the practice is still growing in the country. The association used the theme of “The Greatest Show on Earth,” mailing a personalized entry featuring a bright circus caravan with miniature circus animals and a letter that included a miniature trainer's whip. The pack achieved its goal and whipped up strong interest in direct marketing, with numerous requests for the entry pack. Better yet, the campaign drew 196 entries in a country with fewer than 15 direct marketing and interactive agencies.

Henry Hoke Award

Selected by Hoke Communications, this annual award reflects the campaign with the most courageous solution to a difficult sales marketing problem. And the Henry Hoke Award in 2007 went to GEKKO of Copenhagen, Denmark, for its “Hasselblad Anniversary Campaign” on behalf of client Hasselblad of Copenhagen NV, Denmark. The product manufacturing and distribution B-to-B campaign for this elite camera line had the challenge of educating potential customers and dealers about how to optimize use of a new product line offered by the manufacturer of this high-end equipment, which is most commonly used by professional photographers.

Hasselblad was well-known for its analog photographic equipment, but needed to educate customers and dealers about its high-end digital equipment. To inform, as well as generate interest and orders, GEKKO launched a campaign centered around a young fictitious photographer named Peter, who had been hired to do a high-profile cookbook. Participants were asked to advise Peter and help him do a better job on the assignment. In doing so, participants also earned a chance at winning a Hasselblad digital camera. Though the campaign only ran in English and German, it drew responses worldwide and led to 374 percent more dealer demonstrations than had been projected.