The Landmarks of Excellence constitute the premier awards event for public relations professionals in the region. They are a presentation of the Bluegrass chapter of the Public Relations Society of America and the International Association of Business Communicators, Kentucky chapter.

Congratulations to Mayor Greg Fischer, who was named Communicator of the Year, and to Dan Hartlage, principal with Guthrie/Mayes, who was inducted into the Public Relations Hall of Fame.

New West’s work with clients over the past year resulted in two Awards of Excellence, the top award, along with four Merit Awards and four Honorable Mention Awards:

Awards of Excellence:

• Graphic Design, Periodicals: FIT4FUN/Kentucky Children’s Health & Fitness Fund. This is a lively, colorful, quarterly health and fitness magazine distributed free to all Kentucky public school kids in grades K-3. Our client is Kentucky Children’s Health & Fitness Fund in La Grange. Publisher Jan Winter said she got a little emotional as she realized that “people really believe in this work.”

• Writing, Special Projects: Kentucky Department of Insurance. We worked with the Department of Insurance to spread the word about its new health insurance advocate through a multimedia consumer-focused advertising campaign that included print, television and radio. The budget was limited, but we used creativity and a friendly mascot to demystify the “monster” of health insurance.

Merit Awards:

• Publications, Booklet or Brochure: Kentucky State Fair Board
• Special Event: Kentucky Department of Travel & Tourism
• Graphic Design, Printed Piece: Transit Authority of River City (TARC)
• Overall Community Program, Customer Relations: Transit Authority of River City (TARC)

Honorable Mention:

• Publications, Non-Profit Booklet or Brochure: FIT4FUN/Kentucky Children’s Health & Fitness Fund
• Special Event: General Electric
• Online Communications, External Web Site: Kentucky Cabinet for Health & Family Services
• News Media/Video, Multimedia Presentation: Kentucky Education and Workforce Cabinet

That was one of the main messages we picked up at the Third Annual Emerging Media Summit recently here in Louisville. The summit was put on by the International Association of Business Communicators’ Kentucky Chapter and the Louisville Digital Association. It was a great conference with a lot of good speakers.

Speaker Jason Falls discusses the role of games in social media

Here were some of the other big takeaways:

• Blogs are losing some of their influence as mobile marketing ascends. If you want to do any mobile marketing, you need to have a clutter-free, easy-to-navigate, mobile-optimized version of your web site.
• Technology is changing rapidly. What’s hot today might not be hot tomorrow. Don’t put too much stock in any one tool.
• In social media, no one person can know it all. Any organization involved in communications needs to have multiple people who are comfortable with social media.
• Use multiple approaches to reach out (QR codes, SMS texts, news releases, website, Facebook, Twitter, etc.) and to listen to/quantify what people are saying online (social media monitoring tools, switchboard, surveys, etc.)
• Online health is a growing trend
• Gaming is a growing tool that is applicable to many clients

Tim Hayden of 44Doors compared social media to “the campfire in the village,” where a broad range of conversations is taking place. You can either join them or not, but the conversations are going on. Hayden said mobile marketing brings a new dynamic to communication that is liberating, rewarding and empowering – bridging the online world with the offline. The challenge is in harnessing it.

The use of QR codes in marketing has exploded, allowing smartphone users to wave their devices over a code that takes them to a website. Ergo, instant buy-in from the customer! But does it take the customer somewhere he or she wants to go? Is the site optimized for that little tiny screen the user has in his hand? Does it allow for a quick and seamless exchange of information with him? Does it offer him some sort of reward? Or does it take him to a home page that takes two minutes to load all the graphics, minuscule copy and a confusing array of links?

QR codes are being used for virtual grocery shopping in Korea, wine-brand rollouts in the U.S., restaurant deals, car-repair deals, traffic info, and much more. QR codes are even used as identifiers that could save your life. Say you have an accident and are found unconscious. Medical personnel could scan a code in your wallet that will instantly bring up your health-care history so you’re given the right kind of treatment – and not, for example, a drug to which you might be allergic.

Don’t be surprised if one day soon you walk into your favorite home improvement store and are greeted with an automated voice that says hello and asks if the power drill you bought last time is still working for you, and would you like to save 10% on power tools today?

A foggy summer morning at the D & F Farm in Somerset.

To promote Kentucky Proud produce, we recently shot a 30-second commercial featuring tomato farmer Dwight Faulkner of D & F Farm in Somerset, Kentucky. Eager to capture the gorgeous scenery, our creative team (Paul Gosselin and Mike Duck), the director (Dennis Goodman) and the production company (Videobred) were on location before the sun ever rose. It was worth it, as we got some great shots of rolling fields in the early-morning fog.

You can watch the completed Kentucky Proud spot at http://youtu.be/vzvSRV63iLA

Shooting at Ashford Stud, Versailles

New West is also working with the Kentucky Department of Travel & Tourism to produce a series of three spots showcasing some of Kentucky’s unique attractions, from Lincoln’s birthplace to Cumberland Falls,  from horse farms to distilleries.

Production on the Travel & Tourism spots is drawing to a close, and the ads will air sometime this fall in neighboring states — and likely here as well.

This show, sponsored by the Louisville Advertising Federation, recognizes creative excellence in our localadvertising community. It’s part of a three-tiered system. Work that’s awarded at the local level then advances to the regional level. If it wins at the regional level, it then competes in the national Addy show.

This is all fine and well if you’re an agency. But if you’re a client, a question might cross your mind: “Why should I care?”

Some people believe we admen and adwomen enter award shows simply to satisfy our creative egos. And while I will admit there’s a certain amount of ego gratification involved, that’s not the whole story. An agency that enters the work it creates for its clients is making a statement. It’s saying, “We’re proud of this work. We think it’s some of our best.”  Think about that for a moment. If you’re a client, don’t you want an agency that’s doing its best for you?

There’s another reason you should care. Last year, a new study in the UK by Thinkbox and the Institute for Practitioners in Advertising found that most creatively awarded work is 11 times more efficient at delivering business success.  Did you get that? Eleven times.  1,100% more effective. You can read a summary of the study at www.thinkbox.tv/server/show/ConWebDoc.2490.

Now back to Friday night. Our “Scrapbook” TV commercial for Kentucky Tourism brought home the gold in the special effects/animation category. It was also awarded a silver in the general regional/national TV category. (You can view it on this page.)  “Vintage Kentucky,” a video promoting Kentucky’s winemaking industry for the Kentucky Department of Agriculture won us another silver. A bus shelter poster campaign promoting the free downtown trolleys for the Transit Authority of River City earned us four more silvers. And a newspaper ad campaign for Trilogy Health Services, a network of assisted living and rehabilitation facilities, earned us our final four silvers of the night.

On behalf of New West, let me offer a hearty thank you to our clients who allowed us to do such stellar work last year. And to those of you who aren’t clients yet, maybe you should ask us to create some award-winning work for you, too.

Some other form of media is always more popular. It used to be TV that hogged the limelight. Now it’s social media. Meanwhile, radio continues to quietly chug along in the background just doing its job.

Three years ago, as the economy began to sour, I noticed a strange phenomenon. I was producing more radio spots than ever before. When the economy contracted even further, the radio assignments on my desk only piled up even higher.

The reason why was obvious. When their marketing budgets got cut back, some of our clients took a good hard look at the numbers. They couldn’t afford to saturate the airwaves on TV anymore. But they could afford to do it on radio.

Even though radio advertising doesn’t get a lot of press, as an advertising medium it really has a lot of advantages. Let’s review.

It’s affordable. Compared to TV and print, radio is usually a better value. A good radio media schedule will often cost less and reach more people.

Your audience is already segmented for you. The different programming formats at radio stations appeal to vastly different audiences. This makes it easier to cherry pick the people you want to receive your advertising message. You simply buy the stations that reach your target’s demographics and psychographics.

Production costs are low. Because both TV and print are visual media, you have to show the reader/viewer what you want them to picture. Because of this, setting up a print or TV shoot can be expensive. In a radio spot, however, you can paint a picture in the listener’s mind. You don’t have to show them anything. Through the magic of sound effects and music you can make it sound like someone is hopping all around the world on a pogo stick. The truth is it’s just an actor in a recording studio and some CDs with sound effects on them.

Radio gets results. Here’s one example. Recently, I did a series of radio spots for Kentucky Vehicle Enforcement. The spots were designed to increase awareness among motorists of the danger of crowding commercial vehicles on Kentucky’s highways. In other words, “Don’t get too close to the truckers.” After the campaign ran, surveys revealed that the number of people who said they had heard a message about driving more safely around trucks jumped from 15% to 45%. The surveys also revealed that 5% had changed their driving behavior because of the commercials.

The next time you need to design an affordable advertising campaign, you should really consider radio. Even in a down economy, this “dinosaur” really can help your company make a giant roar.

The publication asked some companies to provide their Return on Investment (ROI) for 2008 Super Bowl ads. Remember… these ads cost around $3 million for a 30 second spot. Here are some examples of their results.

• Audi realized a 200% increase in web traffic in the month after the game;
• E-Trade increased by 12%– in one week– its number of new funded accounts;
• CareerBuilder had a 60% increase in job applications;
• Hyundai drew 300,000 Web site visitors who stayed an average of 5.5 minutes and resulted in 25,000 new leads;
• Cars.com had a 12% increase in brand awareness;
• Anheuser Busch had 21 million online ad views in the week after the game;

We’re not suggesting you should spend $3 million on a Super Bowl ad. However, we are saying you can find ways to quantify the effectiveness of your marketing efforts. This also is a reminder that you should think twice before making your marketing budget your first “cut.” The results could be devastating for your company.