The Reggie Awards are given out anually by PMA to the top promotional marketing campaigns of the year. They were presented last Thursday evening at the end of PMA's 2-Day Annual Conference during a fun and entertainining event held in the Crystal Ballroom of the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Chicago.
I looked up the history of the Reggie's on the PMA website and found this explaination of their name - "The Reggie - is derived from "cash register." It was chosen because "nothing happens until a sale is made." I thought in keeping with the theme of the Conference, "This Changes Everything", perhaps we should consider changing the name of these awards so that they're more current with the growth of online sales. We still use "shopping carts" online, but not registers.
Anyway, I was thrilled with the judges final choice for this year's Super Reggie winner, St. Louis radio station KTRS "Missing Birds" campagin which was created by The Schupp Company. I had the honor to be one of the first round judges this year and this campaign was in the category that I judged - "Local/Regional Market Promotion Under $1,000,000". It was one of my favorite which I had given high scores to.
I found some similarities with the "Missing Birds" and the "Wild Wooly" campaign, the winner of a local ADDY Best Of show award that I wrote about in a post a couple of weeks ago. They both show how the use of great creative combined with the buzz of social media can build a brand and connect with the targeted audience. Here's what the Missing Birds did:
KTRS was about to announce that they had become the Official Radio Station of the St. Louis Cardinals ending a 52 year relationship with a local competitive station. KTRS wanted to promote this in a big way and create a buzz in the community, but on a small budget.
They focused on an outdoor billboard campaign that featured six outdoor locations each with two boards in sequential order. The lead board was just a generic Cardinals message that gave ticket info and the following board promoted KTRS. For 10 days the boards remained up with little-to-no attention.
Then the lead Cardinals board was altered on all six locations to look as if it had been “vandalized” and the Cardinal Birds had literally been ripped off of the board. For four days, the “stolen” birds
popped up all around town and on the internet but remained missing. This caused a media controversy that resulted in lead stories on every St. Louis TV and radio station, as well as in the major newspaper. To increase the buzz factor, KTRS incorporated online social networks such as MySpace.com, eBay, blogs,
forums while offline they had stagings of random bird sightings throughout the city to further fuel the chatter. 
Finally, the “stolen” Cardinals “re-appeared” affixed to the KTRS board with a new spray painted “graffiti” message communicating that the “Cardinals have moved”. The campaign created enourmous buzz around St. Louis for a few weeks. It generated over milions of impressions since it was covered by all the local media...TV, radio, newspaper and online.
KTRS did indeed meet their objective which was getting everyone in St. Louis to know that they were now the new home of the St. Louis Cardinals. They quickly grew from the 19th overall station in the market to the 5th. The St. Louis Cardinals also benefited. Three weeks after the promotion, they had to stop selling 2006 season tickets for the first time ever. Of course, it also helps when you are the current World Series Champions.
Also, there were Gold, Silver and Bronze Reggie's awarded in all of the 14 categories. You can see a complete list of the winners posted on Promo Magazine's Website. You can see a detailed description of all the finalists at PMA Reggies Awards webiste as well.
So, congratualtions to all this year's winners. If any of you have some ideas for new names for the "Reggie's" please pass them on and I will submit them to possibly be considered for next year's awards.
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