PHD Canada was named as a runner-up to Digitas USA in the Agency of the Year category at the Festival of Media Awards in Valencia, Spain Tuesday night. Goodby, Silverstein & Partners was a runner up alongside PHD.
The nod capped off a successful week for PHD Canada at the inaugural edition of the awards.
The agency had earlier won the award for Branding Bravery for its “Finding Body and Soul” execution for Unilever’s Dove Pro-Age and topped the Best Targeted Campaign category for its “Dove Sleepover for Self Esteem” campaign.
Fred Forster, president of PHD Canada, attributed much of his firm’s success to the vision of its Dove clients.
“The cases we submitted weren’t just a matter of putting components of various media together,” said Forster. “Any great campaign has at its core a consumer insight that you can build something around and the brand can stay true to. Dove is very good at understanding that and drilling down to find that real nugget of a consumer insight and building around that so that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.”
Starcom MediaVest Group was named Media Agency Network of the Year, with Mindshare and MediaCom runners-up, and Microsoft Advertising was named Media Owner of the Year with MTV and Yahoo named runners-up.
The winner of the People’s Award was also announced, with the Indian office of Mediacom and client Gillette earning the honour for the India Votes: To Shave or Not campaign for Gillette’s Mach3 razor.
