New Ad Awards Celebrate Online Creativity

'With online advertising poised for strong growth, XtraMSN launches the XtraMSN X Awards to celebrate and reward outstanding advertising creativity on the Internet'.

16 April 2002 - The creative brains behind New Zealand’s best online advertising will get the recognition they deserve with the establishment of the XtraMSN X Awards.

Each month the XtraMSN X Awards will honour the best of New Zealand advertising creativity on the Internet with prizes for the advertising icons behind the winning idea and the winning executions profiled on the XtraMSN X Awards Web site at xawards.co.nz

All monthly winners will be automatically entered as finalists in the annual XtraMSN X Awards grand prize, with the chance to win $30,000 worth of travel to an iconic travel destination of the winner’s choice. The advertiser whose concept wins the annual prize will also receive XtraMSN inventory to the value of $30,000.

XtraMSN General manager Rod Snodgrass says the awards have been designed to put the spotlight on Internet advertising.

“We want to inspire creatives to think beyond the confines of traditional media when they’re responding to creative briefs. The opportunities to be creative online are virtually endless,” says Snodgrass.

“The Internet is being recognised as a credible advertising medium, and all the indications are that the online category will grow significantly in the coming years.

“New Zealanders already spend more time surfing the Net than they do reading newspapers.

“Over three quarters of all New Zealanders have access to the Net from home, work or school, and that number continues to grow. Online has a huge audience, and XtraMSN has reach into almost 75% of that audience, ” he says.

A March 2002 report by online research specialists eMarketer estimated that online advertising spending in the United States would increase by 11% in 2002 to be around 3% of total US media spending.

The report said market fundamentals, the growth in the online audience and ‘always on’ broadband connections indicated that online advertising was destined to grow significantly over the next several years in the US and other markets including New Zealand.

“As we spend more time online we aren’t consuming more media, we’re simply integrating online into our media consumption,” says Snodgrass.

“With online increasingly becoming an important part of the marketing mix, the XtraMSN X Awards will ensure great online creative is recognised and rewarded,” he says.

About Xtra and XtraMSN Part of the Telecom group, Xtra Limited is New Zealand’s leading provider of innovative Internet services that help people and businesses connect with each other and the world.

Through the Web site xtramsn.co.nz Xtra also delivers New Zealand’s most popular Web services to consumers and digital marketing solutions to advertisers.

Almost 785,000 at-home Net surfers visited XtraMSN in March 2002 according to online ratings agency Nielsen//Netratings, making it New Zealand’s most visited Web destination.

XtraMSN combines Xtra’s New Zealand and international coverage across areas such as entertainment, sport, news, health and travel with world-leading Web services from Microsoft including MSN Messenger and MSN Chat.

Find out more online at xtramsn.co.nz

ENDS

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