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."

Hear Some Terrific Radio

.. commercials, that is. 

Click here to listen to the Radio Mercury Award Finalists

I am thinking that these will be the kind of spots that even the folks who use Apple's new patented ad-skipping pateneted technology someday in the distant future will still stop to listen to!

Win Radio Creative's Annual $100,000 Prizes

Normally, I reserve my Twitter account for "re-Tweeting" and try to at the very least put a new spin on news items adequately covered by the traditional trades when I blog. However, the annual call for entries, creative seminars and announcement of the Radio Mercury awards deserves an exception.

The prizes are substantial, the chief judge is impressive, the audio examples will inspire you.

Click here and spend some time on their site!

Three Things About Radio Commercials We Can Agree On

• Commercial free hours beat hours which contain irritating commercials hands down.
• Radio programmers make bad grocery store managers/media buyers, and the reverse is true too.
• Radio can always use more entertaining, creative commercials. (click to hear a bunch of them, presented their trophies and cash just last evening), including the big winner.
  

Need Some Commercial-Creation Inspiration?

Sixty diverse Radio spots (listen to them here) have made it to the finals of the 2010 Radio Mercury Awards, which honors outstanding Radio created by agencies, production companies, Radio stations and students. Entries were judged on their creativity, originality and effective communication of a brand’s message. The second Annual Radio Creative Summit was once again held in conjunction with the final round judging, this year at the VCU BrandCenter in Richmond, Virginia.

“We’re continuing to see marketers leverage Radio in unique ways. This year’s high caliber of brands speak to the medium’s reach and flexibility” -- Jeff Haley, President and CEO of the Radio Advertising Bureau.

Winners will be announced on Monday, September 27th at the Annual Radio Mercury Awards at the NASDAQ MarketSite. A limited amount of tickets are available for purchase. Contact mercury@rab.com or call 212-681-7207.