Content awards handed out at Global Shop

March 25, 2009 by Dave Haynes

I gather from a lot of tweets on Twitter that the big Global Shop retail merchandising show in Las Vegas this week has been very quiet in terms of foot traffic. I had gone the last few years, but gave it a pass this time based on what I was hearing about expected numbers.

It’s still an important show for people in the retail game, and among the big things relevant to DS are the content awards put together by POPAI. They were announced last night, and some of my Canadian friends once again did well.

Of 14 awards handed out, my guys over at Toronto-based Artisan Complete got four of them. They were cited for their experential super wide-screen stuff done for restaurants, as well as a demo station at the LCBO (liquor stores) and content for Home Hardware. A hearty congrats to Kris Steeves, who leads the creative team there and has long been doing some great work.

My neighbors at Burlington, Ontario-based AdFlow were cited for the nice interactive mobile handset information stations they worked up with Telus for its Koodo mall kiosks.

Waterloo, Ontario-based DDC was cited for work it has done with the Rogers (mobile) stores.

And Montreal-based X20 Media won the viewers choice award for its network in Bass Pro Shops. I think, but don’t know for sure, this is the contest Bill Gerba ran off his blog, based on a demo reel.

The other winners were PRN for a couple of non-interactive spots in Walmart and Sam’s Club, The Integer Group for work it did with P&G on an interactive screen, Nanonation for a menu board in McDonald’s, Modernistic for that projected Best Buy sales guy in the Mall of America, Rivet for a Nokia handset spot, and John Ryan for Caja del Mediterraneo, which is … something.

I looked at the reel Gerba posted up there, and much of what was honored was really well done. Not taking anything away, at all, from the winners, but I’m not convinced the entry list was all that long. As this industry matures, and we start to get a real sense of which event is which and what award is what, we’ll really start to see excellence as many more companies routinely submit entries.

The complete list is here, with the digital stuff at the very end …