2010 Vibrant Awards Announced

Microsoft, Razorfish/Universal McCann Take Top Global Honors at NYC Celebration

NEW YORK — June 4, 2010, (BUSINESS WIRE) — Vibrant (www.vibrantmedia.com), a leader in contextual advertising and the provider of next generation hyperlinks, announced the winners of its third annual Vibrant Awards (www.vibrantawards.com) last night recognizing the best of contextual advertising. After evaluating hundreds of entries from agencies and marketers, this year’s top global honors for creative and dynamic use of in-text went to Microsoft (www.microsoft.com) and Razorfish/Universal McCann (www.razorfish.com) (www.universalmccann.com) for the “Bing VCS” campaign (http://www.bing.com) during the celebration held last night at Top of the Rock in Manhattan.

According to Vibrant co-founder and CEO Doug Stevenson ( http://vibrantmedia.com/about/leadership.asp), “We congratulate the winners of the Vibrant Awards for successfully leveraging the power of hyperlinks (www.hyperlinkevolved.com) to deliver great user experiences that are relevant and engaging to our 170 million users. This year, winners took advantage of the medium to deliver real utility through search, video, recipes, real-time results and even Twitter feeds. It’s great to see that Vibrant is helping advertisers innovate within the context of a page of content and we look forward to seeing brands continue to advance using our technology across 4,500 premium publishers.”

Each entry was evaluated by a panel of experts and members of the advertising industry (list of judges below). Winners were selected based on the creativity of the campaign concept and its ability to align with words within web content; how well in-text advertising contributed to the online campaign overall; and whether in-text advertising effectively communicated the brand message.

According to one judge, Jon Halvorson, Global Digital Director, Starcom MediaVest Group, "This year we saw some really bold work and sharper, more finely tuned uses of Vibrant’s in-text platform. The winners we selected all really thought about how consumers interact with Vibrant and came up with innovative keyword strategies to produce better creative and ensure a great experience that added value for the user.”

The 2010 Vibrant Award Winners are:

Gold Award (Global): Microsoft (http://www.microsoft.com/en/us/default.aspx)
Agency: Razorfish/Universal McCann (www.razorfish.com) (www.universalmccann.com)
Campaign: “Bing VCS”

Silver Award (Global): IBM (http://www.ibm.com/us/en/)
Agency: Neo@Ogilvy Worldwide NY (http://www.ogilvy.com/#/About/Network/Neo.aspx/{filter:About})
Campaign: “US Open Sponsorship Program”

Bronze Award (US): Unilever - Hellmann’s ( http://www.hellmanns.us/)
Agency: Mindshare (http://www.mindshareworld.com/)
Campaign: “Real Food Project”

Best Use of Technology Award (Judge’s Choice): Toyota ( http://www.toyota.com/)
Agency: Saatchi + Saatchi LA (http://www.saatchila.com/)
Campaign: “Recall”

Industry Choice Award (US): Best Buy (http://www.bestbuy.com/)
Agency: Razorfish Seattle (http://www.razorfish.com/#/company/global-network/north-america/seattle)
Campaign: FY10 Holiday “(Twelpforce)”

For demos of all the campaigns as well as a full short list, please visit: http://www.vibrantawards.com/vote/global_shortlist.asp

U.S. Judges

• Ed Downing, Leader, Advertising & New Media, GE
• Richard Gagnon, Chief Media Officer, Draft FCB
• Louis Giagrande, Sr. Manager, Online Marketing, Samsung
• Steve Governale, Executive Director, Interactive and Innovation, AT&T
• John Gray, Sr. Vice President, Digital Media, Mindshare-Team Detroit
• Jonathan Halvorson, Global Digital Director, Starcom MediaVest Group
• Luke Kigel, SVP, Digital Managing Director, Universal McCann
• Greg March, Group Media Director, Wieden + Kennedy
• Brian Mathena , VP, Group Media Director at Zenith
• Edward Montes, EVP, Managing Director, Havas
• Tim Queenan, Sr. Vice President/Executive Director of Digital Practice, Draft FCB
• Cary Tilds, Leader Digital Media Operations, North America at MindShare
• Claudio Zibenberg, WW Media Manager, IBM

EU Judges

• Kolja Brosche, Director Digital / Operations UMWW
• Silke Cosetta, Manager Online Marketing/Corporate Marketing Samsung Electronics GmbH
• Chris Maples Sales Director, Microsoft
• Christian Griesbach, General Manager Digital Sales Axel Springer Media Impact
• Dominik Grollmann, Editor in Chief, Internet World Business Magazine
• Arndt Groth, President BVDW
• Damien Hodge, Head of Trading MediaCom
• Paul Hood, Head of Digital The Mirror Group
• Markus Letzner, Director Sales CHIP Xonio Online
• Karin Libowitzky, Deputy Managing Director, MediaCom Interaction GmbH
• Julia Smith, Sr. Manager IASH
• James O'Reilly, Group Brand Manager, Ubisoft
• Alexander von Reibnitz, Managing Director Digital Media & Emerging Business VDZ -Association of German Magazine Publishers
• Matt Simpson Head of OMD Group Digital
• Daniel Stephenson, Head of Digital Marketing, COI
• James Watson, Marketing Communications Manager EON
• Sven Weisbrich, Head of Connections Planning Neue Digitale / Razorfish
• Antje Witgen, Digital Communication Manager Nestlé Deutschland AG
• Marco Zingler, CEO at denkwerk

The Vibrant Awards UK will be presented later this month on June 17^th, and the Vibrant Awards DE will be presented on June 24^th For case studies and demos of all the campaigns as well as a full short list, please visit: http://www.vibrantawards.com/vote/global_shortlist.asp

About Vibrant

Vibrant is a world leader in contextual technology aligning billions of words across the internet with relevant video, information, tools, and advertising. With over 4,500 premium publishers, reaching more than 170 million unique users per month (comScore, 2010), Vibrant gives top brand marketers the opportunity to deliver highly targeted advertisements within premium Web content and offers publishers premium editorial tools to re-circulate users throughout their websites. Vibrant works with top brand advertisers such as Microsoft, Unilever, Warner Bros and AT&T. The company was founded in 2000 and has offices in London, New York, Boston, Detroit, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Paris, Hamburg, Munich and Dusseldorf. Vibrant's rapid growth has been recognized by the Inc. 500 and Deloitte Fast 50 lists. For more information, visit: www.vibrantmedia.com, www.hyperlinkevolved.com, www.facebook.com/vibrantmedia, or twitter.com/vibrantmedia.