What Are The OMMAs?

OMMA Global is a two-day intensive conference, composed of several, single OMMA conferences (Online Media, Marketing, Advertising)  ... all rolled into one. 

The biannual super-conference covers trends, issues and tools -  in all sectors - that are most crucial to  professionals  in the digital and traditional realms of marketing/advertising.

And there are awards!

Who Sponsors The Expo?

Media Post.  They are an integrated publishing and content company "whose mission is to provide an array of resources to super-serve media planners and buyers." They  are the premier provider of up-do-date and relevant content in the tra-digital advertising world, IMO.

There Are Awards?

 Yes. The OMMA Awards for Online Advertising Creativity were created in 2005 to honor those advertisers that push the potential of online advertising. 

26 new categories were added this year (compared with last year's limited TWO categories) for a total of 28 in Advertising Creativity, 15 in Online Campaigns and 18 in Web Site Excellence. 61 Categories total.

The Top Tier Award Categories Include...

1. Online Advertising Creativity

 Entries are accepted from advertisers, agencies, media and suppliers who were involved in creatively outstanding single exectutions and campaigns within any of these categories.

2. Integrated Online Campaigns

Awards go to online marketing campaigns of multiple elements and multiple executions that show outstanding usage of online media in strategic and creative promotion of brands, products and services in the following vertical categories:

3. Website Excellence

Awards go to Web publishers and/or Web developers in these categories whose outstanding content, visual design and user interface create recurring value for both advertisers and end-users. 

Check out the  Winners from 2008.

Why You Should Care, Even If You Don't Attend the Conference Or Enter the Contest.

Consider what Media Post  had to say:

" The Creative Media Awards exemplify our belief that media -- the process of buying, planning and strategy -- is every bit as creative as rendering storyboards for print or TV ad campaigns. ...Some have called media the new creative. At MediaPost, we’ve always thought so! "

That's an important recognition...

...for the digital advertising industry. Why? Because the groups who concept, plan and execute successful campaigns are helping fuel the argument (with ROI-based evidence) to somehow, someway, bring the estimated $500 billion spent annually on offline brand advertising... to the Web. Yes.

Speaking of integrated campaigns and ROI ... take a look at what Congruent Media is doing to close the loop for one of our partners.

In this issue of Friday Bookmarks, we're opening up the Congruent Media del.icio.us account to share some of the more interesting articles delivered by the  the online advertising industry last month, along with a collection of research & analysis tools to help facilitate better planning, management and measurement of online campaigns.

(For those unfamiliar, Friday Bookmarks is a series in which we share link worthy articles from around the web.)

So. Open your bookmarking service and pour a glass of O.J. ... here's your edition of Friday Bookmarks.

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