Television

Tristan O'Carroll, Media Week, 31 October 2008, 11:40am

VBS named top sales team at Media Week Awards

LONDON - Viacom Brand Solutions has been named Sales Team of the Year at the annual Media Week Awards, beating fierce competition from other finalists Bauer Advertising, CBS Outdoor, Guardian News & Media and JC Decaux.

Winning ways: members of the Viacom Brand Solutions team celebrate their achievement at the Media Week Awards

VBS impressed the judges by posting growth at a time when the TV ad market expanded by just 2%, increasing its revenues by 19%.

The company increased the number of brands it works with by 4.3% to 3,388. It also launched a research project called Digital Drive, whereby state-of-the-art technology was installed in 15 homes to predict consumers' media consumption.

Juliet Kennard, Times Media's head of insight, landed the prestigious Rising Star of the Year Award. Kennard, who heads a team of eight planners at the age of only 29, beat Glamour's Grace Dawson, Vizeum UK's Matthew Hook, City AM's Harry Owen and MediaCom's Dan Whitmarsh in the final round.

Classic FM, Turner Media Innovations, Bauer Radio, ITV, IPC Media, News Group, TalkSport and UKTV were the other successful media owners at last night's ceremony - all scooping an award each.

UKTV, along with sales house IDS, landed the Media Brand of the Year award for Dave, the hugely successful digital TV channel launched last year. It stood out largely for its achievement in tripling UKTV's share of the adult and 16 to 44-year-old men market segments. Competition for the award was strong in a category, where UKTV was up against Last.fm, Bebo, Metro and Nickelodeon.

The winners in full:

Media Agency of the Year
MediaCom

Grand Prix
Carat
Adidas: London Marathon

Media Idea Large
Starcom
Honda Accord: Difficult is Worth Doing

Media Idea Medium
MediaCom
GlaxoSmithKline: Aquafresh

Media Idea Niche
Carat
Adidas: London Marathon

Sales Team of the Year
Viacom Brand Solutions

Sales Pitch Large (over £1m)
Classic FM
Ford: Galaxy of Stories

Sales Pitch Medium (£250k - £1m)
Turner Media Innovations
GlaxoSmithKline
Aquafresh: The Nurdles

Sales Pitch Niche (under 250k)
Bauer Radio Events
One Scotland
Rock Against Racism

Media Innovation
ITV
eBay
Bringing eBay's Live Marketplace to Life

International Campaign
Universal McCann
Xbox
Halo 3: Believe

Best Research Initiative
IPC Media
The Origin Panel

Collaboration
News Group Media with TalkSport, MediaCom, ZenithOptimedia, Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO, JCPR and Mars
Mars
Balls

Media Brand of the Year
Dave
UKTV and IDS

Rising Star
Juliet Kennard
Times Media