Ogling Malaysia at the Googlies

Singapore – Malaysia was ogled at the recent Googlies Awards when Malaysia Airlines and Mindshare Malaysia scored Advertiser of the Year and Agency of the Year, respectively.

Malaysia Airlines was recognised for its willingness to try Google’s solutions including, Content Network, Google Earth, and iGoogle to engage its target audience as well as generate revenue.

The national carrier was said to have shared important data and treated Google as a strategic partner to optimise its online campaigns.

It is also the region’s first to use online aggressively to tap the growing group of customers who are eager to carry out online transactions.

Mindshare was recognised for its understanding of the medium, willingness to try out the new platform and readiness to sell optimisation plans to its clients.

Using tools like AdWords editor and Google Analytics, Mindshare is said to be successful in steering its major clients across various industries towards using the online medium as a core part of its marketing strategy.

Proximity scored the Creative Award for its Nescafe campaign which applied content like Google Earth, iGoogle, and Gadget ads to create an integrated campaign providing multiple touch points to engage users and harnessed the interactivity of the medium.

Lori Sobel, managing director, Southeast Asia sales and operations, Google congratulated the winning companies for “raising the bar in creativity, results and measurability of the online advertising platform from lead generation to brand building”.

The Googlies were handed to agencies and advertisers who have successfully and creatively leveraged Google’s products and advertising solutions to execute sizzling, memorable online campaigns in 2008.

Millennium & Copthorne Hotels took the Campaign of the Year award for being visible when their users were searching for travel related information, making their campaign a strategic tool for revenue generation and branding.

Listerine J&J won the Innovative Advertiser Award for using targeting solutions – content site targeting – under the usually low search volume FMCG category.

Listerine used dating and job sites as well as social networking sites to reach their target audience with display ads.

McDonald’s bagged the Promotional Campaign of the Year award for its holistic campaign using search and display advertising in association with offline media which aimed at promoting its round-the-clock deliver service and using the internet as a meal ordering medium.

PurpleClick scored the Agency of the Year (SMEs) for Online Marketing Education for consistently educating the Singaporean SMEs on online marketing, particularly search engine marketing and AdWords.