AIS launches DMA Awards push - DecisionMarketing

The DMA has launched a multimedia campaign to promote its annual awards – claimed to be the DM industry’s biggest awards programme – devised by last year’s Grand Prix winner, Archibald Ingall Stretton.
AIS, which scooped the top prize for its campaign to bring England’s rugby matches in 3D to O2’s customers, was briefed to create all communications for this year’s awards. Elements include direct mail, posters, emails, brochures, table plans and cards. It will also produce the design work for the book of the night, the DMA Annual.
Creative features a visualisation of the chemical reaction – or synapse – that takes place in someone’s brain at the exact moment they win an award. The image is an artist’s impression, based on scientific drawings of the explosion. The lead image, in DMA Awards red, will be used on the mailings, with emails and posters featuring alternative synapses. The copy reads: “This is what winning a DMA looks like inside your brain. It only lasts for .014 of a second. But the memory lasts forever.”
The DMA Annual, given out to winners after the ceremony, will feature each category winner and a synapse image, seemingly personalised to show the chemical reaction when each won their award. In a new move, AIS has also created a letter addressed to agency financial directors, to give information about entering the DMAs directly to the budget controller.
The campaign breaks this week, starting with a call for early bird registration before the call for entries, which opens in early August.
DMA Awards chair Mike Colling said: “It’s important to keep the DMA Awards’ branding fresh and exciting, and AIS has hit the nail on the head with this campaign. Winning a DMA Award is one of the highlights of your career, and they’ve perfectly captured the moment of excitement when you hear your name being read out and your hard work rewarded.”
AIS founding partner Steve Stretton commented: “Winning last year’s DMA Grand Prix really was like ‘fireworks going off in your head’, as the copy says. What better way to show the moment of euphoria – when your strategy, creative and results combine in one winning moment – than by using the actual chemical reaction? It’s simple and effective.”