At last week’s ANA/AICP Battle of the Brands, an Amercan Idol-esque style competition, Seattle’s Rainier Brewing Company bested larger opponents and took home the Grand Prize for its Remember Rainier campaign for Rainier Beer. The first-ever collaboration between the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) and the Association of Independent Commercial Producers (AICP), the Battle of the Brands was designed to reward marketers and their creative colleagues for the successful use of entertainment properties in their brand marketing programs. The audience of national marketers and entertainment executives used hand-held devices to vote for the winners. Facing off against teams from Burger King, Sega, and ESPN, Rainier Brewing, a division of Pabst Brewing Company, took home not only the grand prize but top honors in three of the four categories: Strategy, Production Ingenuity, and Business Performance. The fourth category, Creativity, was won by Burger King for its Subservient Chicken campaign.
The four brand contestants were the finalists culled from all the entries to the Battle of the Brands competition, sponsored by ANA and AICP. Each of the finalists was invited to field a team to present its campaign and demonstrate how brand and entertainment are integrated within it. A panel of judges commented on the presentations and the winner was the team that accumulated the most points.
