After reviewing 1000 entries from nearly 200 newspapers, 131 marketing campaigns from newspapers in 34 countries were selected as finalists for the 72nd annual award. From the finalists, 60 first-place award recipients across three circulation groups in 20 categories were announced on 26 April 2007 at the INMA World Congress.
Judging for the 2007 competition took place in February in Los Angeles by 23 top executives from Southern California media companies, product marketers, and advertising agencies.
“With this being our first-time entry, in what is known as the global Oscars for newspaper marketing, it is the cherry on top to win this award for our centenary campaign,” says Mike Robertson, CEO of Johncom Media Investments.
The creative idea for the campaign originated from the Ogilvy team observing a number of the weekly editorial meetings at the newspaper. From sitting in they were witness to how editorial staff actually compete with each other to get their stories published with some editorial sessions getting quite heated. They soon discovered that there is only so much space and only the best stories can eventually get in.
The creative execution saw Ogilvy personify some of the best stories from the last 100 years and making them literally compete with one another for a place in the Sunday Times centenary edition supplements.
In print, still images of selected people who represented stories from the last 100 years were pitted against one another by placing them side by side. This looked like the characters were literally fighting it out for a place in the centenary editions. The campaign idea was also pulled through similarly in TV and radio, where iconic images and voices were used to represent the stories told.
This created hype and excitement in the build up to the publication of the centenary supplements as readers could only find out which stories and icons made it through when they looked through their free copy published on the first Sunday of every month over a four-month period.
“By using big names with big news, the creative idea delivered on the stature of the paper, and it delivered authority through a strongly branded pay-off line that said ‘Only the best stories’,” concludes Eric D’ Oliveira, Ogilvy Cape Town deputy MD.
