Best Buy, Target, Sears Cited For Innovative Ad Campaigns

CHICAGO — Best Buy and Target took home top awards for their innovative advertisements from the Retail Advertising and Marketing Association (RAMA) here in February.

Considered among the most prestigious conferences in retail marketing and advertising, the group's Retail Advertising Conference (RAC) attracts more than 1,500 advertising professionals annually. From the 775 entries in this year's competition, the judges selected 42 winners, 58 finalists and 47 honorable mentions.

Best Buy won three gold RAC awards and an RAC silver award. Its "First Kick" TV spot combined humor and sentimentality to sell consumer electronics. It tells the story of a father teaching his son how to kick a football and the whole family watches the home video on their 32-inch digital television. Best Buy's print ad series, which shows electronic entertainment products enhancing life in a lecture hall, an airport and in a dorm room, also brought home the gold.

"The RAC Awards are special because the exclusive focus is on retail advertising," said Best Buy senior VP Julie Engel. "It's gratifying when your peers select your work as the best in your industry."

Target's "Pop Art" ad campaign, which used the common marketing technique of brand building by integrating seemingly unrelated products in a repetitive, Andy Warhol-influenced design approach, was recognized with the Best of Show Award. In addition to the stark, red and white "Pop Art" effort, Target won a handful of other honors for managing to incorporate the red Target icon in clever ways to make it universally recognized, even without the store name.

Blockbuster, Kmart, The Home Depot, OfficeMax.com, Sears and Wal-Mart were among the other retailers cited at the awards ceremony.

The RAC is sponsored by the Retail Advertising and Marketing Association, the international association for retail marketing and advertising professionals.