Advertising/Marketing

There were more than 1,000 entries for this year's OMA Poster Awards and UK agency Bartle Bogle Hegarty took the Grand Prix for its "Bob Sleigh" ad for Murphy's.

Category winners included DDFH&B for Nestle's Kit Kat Chunky with "Workman's Hut"; McCann Erickson-Dublin for its DART poster for the Bank of Ireland sponsorship of the GAA; Owens DDB for Digifone "he loves you not"; and Ogilvy & Mather, for its SmithKline Beecham, Lucozade Fade Away Advertisement.

Two effectiveness awards were given, one to Cawley Nea for Today FM and the other to OceanFree.net. Both campaigns were judged to have had a direct impact on the business of their clients.

The appropriately named Genesis Advertising won in the "First use of outdoor" category for its campaign for the Christian Churches of Ireland.

New figures from PML, the outdoor advertising specialists, show that Eircom and Eircell were the top spenders on outdoor advertising in 2000, and that both significantly increased their expenditure when compared with 1999 figures. Eircom spent £2.4 million (€3.05 million) on outdoor, up 70 per cent on the previous year, while Eircell spent just more than £2 million, up 72 per cent on 1999. These were followed by Guinness Draught, Bulmers Cider, McDonalds, Heineken Lager, Smirnoff Ice, Smirnoff and the ESB.

The new phase of Adidas's global "makes you better" campaign was filmed in the unlikely environment of Dublin's Connolly Station. All-Black Jonah Lomu is seen helping passengers board the train while the copy line reads "Adidas makes you supportive". The ad was filmed in December, using actors as train passengers, and was devised by Amsterdam based agency, 180.

It starts this week on RTE1, Network 2, TV3 and Sky, and is part of a brand-wide marketing concept that includes outdoor, Internet and point-of-sale.