Wieden + Kennedy beat back an unusually long list of finalists to win the Grand Effie tonight for its “Imported from Detroit” campaign for Chrysler.
The winner emerged from a pack of 10 finalists which vied for the top prize at the 44th annual Effie Awards. In contrast, there were just six finalists last year, when Wieden also emerged victorious with "The man your man can smell like" for Old Spice.
The other contenders this year included Leo Burnett/Starcom’s “Mayhem” for Allstate; BBDO’s “Convincing youth not to text” for AT&T; Ogilvy & Mather’s “Watson” for IBM; Bartle Bogle Hegarty/Carat’s “Say it without saying it” for Johnnie Walker; and Ogilvy/MEC’s “The life improvement store” for Ikea.
Nine judges—including JWT’s Jeff Benjamin, Unilever’s Luis DiComo and Mars’ Deborah Sandler—deliberated for five hours in selecting the winner, which was revealed at the end of a dinner ceremony at Cipriani 42nd Street in New York.
"Imported from Detroit" stood out because it "sold the product, the category and the city," said Sandler. Benjamin added that the campaign, which launched on the Super Bowl last year, "gave that brand its soul back."
The agency that won the most Effies overall was Ogilvy with 17, followed by Burnett with 13 and Crispin Porter + Bogusky with seven.
The show hands out gold, silver and bronze prizes for outstanding campaigns in more than 40 categories. The Effies awarded a total of 31 golds this year (not every category warranted a gold this year). A complete list of the winners is available here.
For the first time this year, the Effies also named the “most effective” advertiser, brand, agency, agency office, independent agency and holding company, based on a system that applies points to each prize, with golds, of course, worth the most points. Rising to the top of those respective categories were Procter & Gamble; IBM; Ogilvy & Mather; Ogilvy, New York; McKinney; and WPP Group.