I’m proud to announce that as the title of this post subtly hints at, Deep Focus was named one of the Agencies of the Year by MediaPost’s OMMA Magazine. We have been chosen for our work in the world of Social Media, and we’re honored by the distinction.

I am proud to have our agency be in the company of the folks also being honored. An in-depth look at the agency winners will be in the January issue of OMMA, but here’s the quick rundown:

Gold: MEC Interaction
Silver: Mindshare Interaction
Bronze, Best Integrated Approach: The Insight Factory
Bronze, Best Creative Executions: AKQA
Bronze, Best Use of Broadband Video: OMD Digital
Bronze, Best Use of Social Media: Deep Focus

Kudos to the other agencies named here, and, well, kudos to Deep Focus. You guys are the best group of people I have ever worked with, and you inspire me each and every day.

Congrats all!

(And no, we had nothing to do with the "focus" tagline for the awards.)

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I just got back from the OMMA Awards, and I’m proud to announce that Deep Focus walked away with 2 wins:


Rich Media Campaign
Agency: Trailer Park
Client: Buena Vista Pictures Marketing/”Meet the Robinsons”
Agency: Avenue A/Razorfish
Client: Washington Mutual
Agency: Deep Focus
Client: HBO/Flight of the Conchords


Viral Campaign
Agency: The Coca-Cola Company
Client: The Extreme Diet Coke & Mentos Experiments
Agency: Deep Focus
Client: Court TV/Parco P.I.
Agency: Eventful
Client: Energizer


Congrats to our clients at HBO and Court TV, and of course, the folks responsible for these campaigns at Deep Focus. You all are more dedicated, and work harder than anyone I’ve ever worked with…and I’m eternally grateful. I don’t need an award to remind me of that.

What’s special about these wins is that they are the results of clients trusting their agency to do things against the norm and against tradition. They listen. They are partners. They help us make “the big idea” happen by trusting our judgment, research, and instincts. They share the information that inform their great decisions, and allow us to not stop our thinking at digital interactive media. After all, all forms of media can be made interactive.

On that note, a special thanks to our friends at Amalgamated, GEM Group, and MediaStorm for their collaboration and support on the “That Girl Emily” campaign for Parco P.I..

One other thing to note. A weird thing, actually.

We were nominated for a category, Home Page Takeover/ Sponsorship, that was completely skipped over at tonight’s show. Guess I’ll have to tune into the website to find out the results…

What’s up with that?

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MediaPost’s OMMA Award Finalists have just been announced, and Deep Focus is a finalist in 4 different categories.

Sweet. Big ups to our clients and to ourselves!

Here they are, in no particular order:


Video Appearing in a Banner, Pre-roll, Interstitial or In-stream Unit

Agency: AKQA
Client: Visa/Real People, Real Stories

Agency: Creative Digital Group
Client: EyeWonder

Agency: Deep Focus
Client: Court TV/Murder by the Book

Rich Media Campaign

Agency: Deep Focus
Client: HBO/Flight of the Conchords

Agency: Trailer Park
Client: Buena Vista Pictures Marketing/”Meet the Robinsons”

Agency: Avenue A/Razorfish
Client: Washington Mutual

Viral Campaign

Agency: The Coca-Cola Company
Client: The Extreme Diet Coke & Mentos Experiments

Agency: Deep Focus
Client: Court TV/Parco P.I.

Agency: Eventful
Client: Energizer

Home Page Takeover/Sponsorship

Agency: Deep Focus
Client: Dewar’s White Label/Onion News Network

Agency: True North
Client: ABC/Lost

Agency: Universal McCann, L.A.
Client: Sony Pictures/Spider-Man 3

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Deep Focus has won its first Lion at the prestigious Cannes Lion Awards! The 2007 Promo Lion for Best Integrated Promotional Campaign went to DF for Court TV’s PARCO P.I..

Amalgamated, MediaStorm, Gem, and of course, Court TV all played big parts in this campaign, and we share the honor with them!

It was the only campaign from the US to be honored in the Promo Lions in 2007, and we’re proud to be carrying the torch for our fine, fine country.

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So I went to the Webby Awards last night, as Deep Focus was a double-winner along with our client, Picturehouse. I certainly had fun at the event, which is often touted as “the Oscars of the Internet”. I have some serious issues with that statement, but just as the Oscars have highlights and lowlights, so did The Webbys:

The Highlights
* Our client, Nevin Shalit, SVP New Media at New Line Cinema accepted the Webbys on both of our behalf. In a very touching 5-word acceptance speech (as the rules state they must be), Nevin stated:

Thank you Guillermo, Chad, Sabrina.

That’s Guillermo del Toro (Pan’s Labyrinth’s Director), Chad Ossman (Senior Developer, New Line), and Sabrina Caluori (Account Director, Deep Focus).

I was able to pry Nevin’s backup speeches out of him as well — speeches he almost went with:

All hail Guillermo del Toro

Guillermo, direct Master and Margarita

Personally, I was for the second one, but hey…what are you going to do.

* The Beastie Boys — It’s amazing how they always manage to stay relevant.

* David Bowie — Even though he didn’t come out as Ziggy Stardust, it was still really great to see him on a stage.

The Lowlights

* There was virtually no enthusiasm at this event during the awards ceremony, other than those that were cheering on their party’s designated accept-er. This is a serious problem. We’re trying to celebrate creativity here. Didn’t feel like much celebrating — or appreciating — was going on. This event needs its personality back. Apparently Nick Denton @ Valleywag agrees:

I’ve vowed never to attend another Webby Award show for as long as I’ve been going to the show. After last night’s 2007 gala, it’s finally time to burn the bridges.

* The old-school internet heavyweights, like AOL, Yahoo and eBay, received extremely lukewarm receptions. I wonder if it was that people don’t remember the contributions these companies had to the fact that this medium is now taken seriously, or that they remember that these companies are not necessarily inspiring creativity all that much. Lest we forget that eBay’s taken chances on Skype and Stumbleupon, and Yahoo’s stepped up with acquisitions like Flickr (who also had a lukewarm reception). Weird.

It was definitely a classy event. But I don’t know…maybe it was too classy.

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I’m proud to announce that Deep Focus & Picturehouse have won not only the Webby Award for Pan’s Labyrinth as Best Movie/Film Website, but also the People’s Voice Award (the one we really care about) in the same category!

Deep Focus was responsible for the hugely popular Journals of Imagination section.

Congrats, us! And congrats, Picturehouse!

By the way, we were also an official Webby Honoree for the following:

Rich Media Advertising: Business to Consumer: Nike’s Team Elite, and

Other Advertising: Integrated Marketing Campaigns: HBO’s Rome - Season Two

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The ad:tech 2007 Awards Finalists were announced today.

A breakdown of the top 5 agencies by number of finalist entries:

Ogilvy: 6
AKQA: 5
Deep Focus: 4
GSD&M: 3
R/GA: 3

The 2007 awards ceremony will take place at ad:tech San Francisco, on Wednesday, April 25th.

Note to ad:tech: Lose the Rovion InPerson talking shmoes that periodically appear on the conference website. Holy cow, that’s annoying.

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