David vs. Goliath

This is an award for smaller, new or emerging brands making inroads against big, established leaders; taking on "sleeping giants;" or moving into a new product/service field beyond their current category adn set of competitors.

2009 GOLD

A Sub Chain Facing An Uphill Battle

Erbert & Gerbert's, a regional 46-store sub chain, was outmatched and outspent by marketing behemoths such as Subway. E&G faced a difficult position -- evolve or starve. With a fresh brand experience, E&G focused its limited marketing dollars on the emerging millennial market and let earned media take care of the rest. More than 3 million online impressions, thousands of blog postings and national spotlight attention increased E&G system-wide store sales in a declining industry and created a new generation of loyal customers.

Brand: Erbert & Gerbert's Subs & Clubs
Client: Erbert & Gerbert's Franchise Systems
Agency: Colle+McVoy

2009 GOLD

How Much Is Your Network Costing You?

In the networking category, Nortel is the David to Cisco's Goliath. However, comparing the costs of Nortel and Cisco data networks revealed a powerful fact: Cisco data systems cost more to run than Nortel's. That was the chink in Cisco's armor. Launched with limited paid media that directed the audience to search for the Cisco energy tax, the campaign was a huge success. The Nortel sales pipeline grew 46%, shattering the 15% goal. Blog and press coverage was broad. Nortel was out of the shadow of the giant.

Brand: Nortel
Client: Nortel
Agency: McCann Worldgroup

2009 SILVER

Unsnobby Coffee

Launching McDonald's premium coffee in Seattle, Starbucks' hometown, where The Buck outflanks McDonald's 4-to-1 in retail locations and there's an indie cafe on every corner, was no easy task. The strategy: Tap into unpretentiousness, a core value of Washingtonians, to create a backlash against coffee elitism. The campaign included a 12-foot-tall coffee confessional housing "our Dr. Phil" of the espresso world conducting anonymous "Unsnobby" interventions, which got Seattle buying McCafe, over-delivering trial goal by 173%.

Brand: McDonald's, Western Washington
Client: McDonald's Corporation
Agency: DDB West

FINALISTS

Aldi UK Aldi vs. Goliath (and his three brothers)

Noosa noosa tastes like: how noosa grew against the yogurt goliaths

Crema Dental Polar Bocas de verdad