2013 Radio Mercury Award Winners

114 radio spots and campaigns made it to the finals of the 2013 Radio Mercury Awards, which honors outstanding radio created by advertising agencies, production companies, radio stations and students.

Entries were judged on their creativity, originality and effective communication of a brand’s message.

Click to listen to many of the winners and finalists

Target was named the marketer of the year by the Radio Mercury judges.  “We’ve been focused on the use of audio as a channel and how that can build up storytelling from our video components and our other experiential marketing and think about how that can extend a broader story and at the same time we’re very successful at using it to drive big traffic moments and high-frequency celebrations like Black Friday.”   - Target/Haworth Marketing + Media Director of Media Strategy Melissa Schoenke

Target spent $18.6 million on national radio in 2012 according to Kantar Media, and that figure is likely to grow in 2013 according to today's Inside Radio.

Barton F. Graf 9000 created the ad for Ragu pasta sauce which won the $50,000 grand prize.

Bill Cimino, chief creative officer, Y&R Midwest was chief judge for this year’s Radio Mercury Award and is a three-time winner himself for his work on the highly-decorated “Real Men of Genius” campaign for Bud Light on radio:  “There’s no other medium that if you have a bad idea that it is illuminated so fast.  You can’t hide behind pretty pictures and production values.  It’s theater of the mind and you know rather quickly if you have something special."