Each year, the New Jersey Communications, Advertising and Marketing Association (NJCAMA) celebrates the top tier of the region’s marketing and communications work through its ASTRA Awards.
Featured below are the entries that won Gold in 2017. NJCAMA congratulates all of the 2017 award winners and looks forward to showcasing the 2018 Gold winners after the 2018 ASTRA Awards Dinner in June.
Creative Marketing Alliance (CMA): Driver Safety Video
The company’s Health and Safety division (internal Communications) partnered with CMA to develop a video highlighting the many safety issues/problems while driving. Many employees spend time on the road, particularly sales people, and, as such, corporate wanted to stress the proper behavior to have while driving.
CMA decided to use a humorous approach, as many safety videos are not that exciting to look at. The humor gets the point across in an entertaining fashion and gets shared among people a lot more than a straight safety video.
CMA developed a specific character — Professor Safe T. First — dressed in a lab coat, talking and addressing people from a lab. The professor looks like a mad genius and has a very cartoonish voice.
The video was very well received by the company employees, and while we do not have any stats with regards to accident and safety, the company informed CMA that it was indeed a successful internal campaign.
02 Advertising: 2016 EJI Excellence in Medicine Award Invitation
This invitation kit with die-cut cover was designed for the 2016 Excellence in Medicine Awards Gala — a yearly event that honors the work of NJ physicians and leaders in the field of medicine. It was printed on silk, cover stock with satin Aqueous finish. The 2-tone color palette accentuates the unique angular design, which was carried through to all the other elements in the invitation kit.
Oxford Communications: Oxford Communications 30th Anniversary Invitation
For Oxford’s own 30th anniversary celebration, we challenged ourselves to project creativity with elegance and high production values. The invitation itself featured a short fold with black and grey ink on a pearlescent stock, giving the illusion of metallic printing. The invitation was contained in a separate enclosure, featuring silver foil on a black stock. The enclosure was designed to have a life of its own beyond the party — suitable for new business and other mailings.
Oxford Communications: Next at Xchange Pocket Folder Collateral
In 2008, Xchange at Secaucus Junction opened its first building of 240 apartments between the Passaic River and Secaucus Junction Transit Station. Our challenge was to brand and rent a community in the middle of nowhere but within a 10-minute train ride from Manhattan. Nine years later, there are more than apartments at Xchange at Secaucus Junction. It includes a 35,000-square-foot amenity space, a community garden, outdoor green spaces, a solar farm, and a small retail mall on the property. For NEXT, the second phase of the community, we were given the challenge to create a premium sub-brand — albeit in a collateral package that could be changed over time. Our solution featured the marriage of high design and high flexibility, with luxury lifestyle images, together with individual inserts.
Oxford Communications: Oxford Website
The Oxford Communications website was more than a year in the making, concepted, designed and developed with collaborative input from staff members from across the agency. With keen awareness that the website architecture and design itself would make a statement about the agency, we landed on a site concept that would afford us the flexibility to showcase our latest and greatest work, thinking, culture and contributions to the community. We also gave primary consideration to the UX, making the site easy to navigate with a minimum of clicks to reach desired content. The site’s CMS is fully within our control, making ongoing updates fast and easy.
Oxford Communications: TASK Video Series
This pro bono series of social media videos highlights and explores the talented artists of the Trenton Community A-Team, which since 2014, has been enhancing community pride by supporting, developing and promoting self-taught, local artists. The Trenton Community A-Team is a 501(c)(3) associated with the Trenton Area Soup Kitchen. The video series was developed as part of the Oxford Cares initiative. Oxford Cares is a skills-based volunteer program charged with the mission to provide brilliant, positive, and impactful service to local not-for-profit organizations. The series can be viewed here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL71lKrahtVdmv97rJETL8-xbvXbURlT_L
Oxford Communications: Werther’s Microsite
Oxford Communications was challenged to create an online experience that would generate awareness of the Werther’s Original portfolio of products while engaging and educating the target audience during the brand’s key selling season. Leveraging the popularity of the online personality quiz format, Oxford developed a custom personality quiz for the brand, What’s Your Caramel Personality, that attracted over 93K site visits. View the Werther’s site here.
The Exhibit Company: KEF America Trade Show Exhibit
KEF America is an innovative high performance loudspeaker development company known for its sleek, VIP appeal. Keeping consistent with the VIP appeal, we used black and white for the opening of the booth. This “black tie” impression immediately gave the booth a high-end image, keeping consistent with KEF itself. As clients were guided through the booth, all of the details were clean, minimal and distinct. A well-groomed KEF representative explained the history of the company and led clients to the interior where clients were able to browse these products at their leisure while getting a unique perspective on their history, quality and distinctness. To attract interest from potential clients, a large timeline graphic was created for the entrance of the booth. Tower graphics were printed on a translucent fabric material. All exterior walls were constructed from a metal framework; with beading hanging down to create an open but structured feeling. If people looked into the booth, they were able to see what was inside, but the only way to enter was from the main entrance where the guided tours started. The Exhibit Company was able to meet the requirements and present a finished booth the client was thrilled about.