As moderator, Mr. Cheyfitz will guide the proceedings of the world’s largest gathering of worldwide chief creative officers ever to judge an advertising competition.

New York Festivals® International Advertising Awards announced Kirk Cheyfitz, Global CEO & Chief Storyteller, Story Worldwide will moderate New York Festivals 2013 Executive Jury. As moderator, Mr. Cheyfitz will guide the proceedings of the world’s largest gathering of worldwide chief creative officers ever to judge an advertising competition. Unlike other competitions, the NYFA Executive Jury does not elect a chairman or president — all members are of equal status.

“This is the third year in a row that NYF has brought together 31 of the world’s most prominent creative executives to select the World’s Best Advertising®, in addition to 275 Grand Jury members” said Jim Smyth, CEO International Awards Group. “Kirk’s experience with people from all walks of life combined with his commitment to the art and commerce of advertising make him the ideal moderator for this impressive jury.”

Mr. Cheyfitz, an award-winning journalist, author, editor, publisher and innovator in nontraditional marketing and custom-created content, began his career as a journalist in Detroit. He has had a prominent career as editor and/or president of five major titles, including Chicago magazine. Cheyfitz was a Pulitzer Prize finalist for his investigative reporting at the Detroit Free Press and winner of the Society of Professional Journalists’ prestigious Sigma Delta Chi Bronze Medallion for investigative reporting.

As Executive jury Moderator, Mr. Cheyfitz will lead the New York Festivals Executive Jury through 5 days of judging in New York City, the world capital of advertising. Together, though 5 rounds of judging, the Executive Jury will evaluate every shortlisted entry selected by the online Grand Jury, across all mediums, using NYF’s patent pending revolutionary Matrix Scoring System to select the World’s Best Advertising®.

To view the 2013 Executive Jury visit: http://www.newyorkfestivals.com/NYFJuries/

You can read the full release at PR WEB:
http://www.prweb.com/releases/prweb2013NYF/04/prweb10637744.htm

Story’s work on Epica Wines, which won an OMMA Award for Best Integrated Online Campaign: Beverage (alcoholic) last October and two gold Davey Awards, was named a Webby Honoree in the  Food & Beverage category.

The WGN America social media campaign for How I Met Your Mother, anchored by the “Your Mother” SuperFan Facebook community and its more than 2,000,000 fans, earned Honoree status in the Entertainment, Social Content and Marketing category. Story’s work for WGNA was a 2013 Shorty Award finalist in two categories (Best Use of Facebook Advertising; Best Overall Brand Presence).

Story’s innovative iPad book-app, Bats! Furry Fliers of the Night, was named a Webby Honoree in the Education & Reference category. The book-app has earned numerous distinctions since it was published in 2012, including a gold Unity Award in Amsterdam for Best Non-Game Use and a silver Parent’s Choice Award.

With 11,000 entries received from all 50 US states and over 60 countries, the Official Honoree distinction is awarded to the top 15% of all work entered that exhibits remarkable achievement.

Robert Rasmussen has joined Story Worldwide as the path-breaking content agency’s first Chief Creative Officer.

“I want to help build the future of advertising,” explains the well known creative, who has helped lead agencies such as Wieden+Kennedy, BBH, R/GA, Tribal DDB and others.

The ad industry is struggling with channel proliferation and clients’ rapidly growing demands for always-on content and brand messaging across channels. Story marries a heritage of journalism, entertainment and long-form content creation with pioneering work in branding, digital strategy and social media programming. Rasmussen adds deep cross-media creative experience—including famous TV work as well as digital campaigns, from the ridiculous restrictions placed on children in the Cannes Lion-winning Ally Bank TV launch to the multi-level digital drama of the Beta-7 campaign that launched Sega’s ESPN NFL Football video game. Beta-7 was recently named best non-TV campaign of the decade in the Book of Tens by Advertising Age.

Story’s approach to advertising is to create engaging brand stories in all forms that spark conversations and sharing.

“Our way of creating advertising meshes perfectly with Rob’s,” says Simon Kelly, CEO North America for Story, “A client should want a journalist, a novelist or a screenwriter at the table because they know a good story when they see one.” Pointing to Global CEO Kirk Cheyfitz, a former journalist and Pulitzer finalist, Kelly said, “Real storytellers are intensely attuned to audiences; what audiences need and want; what gets audiences involved and talking.”

As Rasmussen began to contemplate his next career move, he says, “I realized that I didn’t want to go to a big, monolithic agency and building brands and telling their stories is what I am passionate about and am compelled to do.”

Rasmussen says Story fits perfectly with his vision of advertising’s present and future. Story’s leaders agree.

“We are a new kind of content agency, built to replace the traditional ad agency,” says Cheyfitz. “We begin at the beginning with a unique process that locates each brand’s core story and we go the rest of the way, taking responsibility for results.”

Cheyfitz added, “Rob is the extremely rare talent Story needed to complete our offering. He crafts impeccable story ideas that aren’t limited to any particular form or channel. They aren’t TV ideas or Facebook ideas, they’re ideas that create meaning and results for brands. Ideas that trigger conversations, on social platforms and around the dinner table. That makes him the perfect creative leader for us.”

Former Tribal DDB Chief Creative adds traditional heft to agency’s content offerings

Former Tribal DDB U.S. Chief Creative Officer Rob Rasmussen has landed a new role as Chief Creative Officer of Story Worldwide. Story has multiple offices in the U.S., Europe and Asia and bills itself as a “global content marketing agency.” Although it’s not as widely known as big name shops at which Rasmussen previously worked, including BBH, R/GA, JWT and Wieden, he says the agency’s content-first M.O. is what he’s been looking for all along.

“After I left Tribal [in July] I reached this point between being at the best shops in the world, it’s not like I needed to go to another agency that may or may not need my contribution,” he said. ” I thought I wouldn’t want to go into any advertising agency as they exist, or go and try to fix somebody else’s advertising agency. So I freelanced, worked with people I respected. Through this process it reminded me how much I love to be close to the work and how much the work that’s expected of us is changing. I thought L.A. was a place I wanted to go because it has so many storytellers, filmmakers, musicians. The idea of creating brand stories was appealing to me, but then I found Story in New York.”

You can read the entire article on Creativity Online.

Story’s work for EPICA Wines, which recently won Best Integrated Online Campaign: Beverage (alcoholic) at last month’s OMMA Awards, earned two Davey Awards, both gold, for its innovative website and “Life in the Moment” short films.

Paragard earned a silver award in the Websites – Pharmaceuticals category. This is the fourth award Paragard has earned this year, which includes a gold W3 Award for Best Pharmaceutical Website as well as a gold DTC National Advertising Award for Best New Product Launch.

RCI, the global leader in vacation exchange, earned two Silver awards for its Endless Vacation iPad application.

“It’s no surprise that Story continues to win awards for its innovative work,” said Jon Thomas, Story’s Communications Director. “The success across such a broad spectrum of brands and categories reinforces our approach to unearthing each brand’s unique story and telling it in ways that audiences enjoy and want to share.”

Story has now garnered 37 awards across 11 brands in 2012.

About the Davey Awards
The Davey Awards is an international creative award focused exclusively on honoring outstanding creative work from the best small firms worldwide. The 2012 Davey Awards received nearly 4,000 entries from ad agencies, interactive agencies, production firms, in-house creative professionals, graphic designers, design firms and public relations firms.

The reception also saw the announcement of the shortlist for 2012 Digital Preservation Awards. Story Worldwide’s Digital Archaeology project was one of four shortlisted for “an outstanding contribution to teaching and communication in digital preservation.” Although the number of entries was not announced, it is reported that the DPC received almost twice as many nominations this year as last and many proposals which would have won easily in previous years were eliminated as the standard was so high.

Click here to read more about Story’s Digital Archaeology project.

On the eve of the first day of Advertising Week in New York City, Story Worldwide, the world’s first global post-advertising agency, took home the OMMA Award for Best Integrated Online Campaign: Beverage (alcoholic) for its work on the U.S. brand launch of EPICA Wines.

The Viña San Pedro Wine Group, based in Chile, recruited Story to help launch its new wine, EPICA, in the United States. Story was tasked with providing branding, marketing and creative development to introduce the brand in a crowded Millennial-consumer market.

Story’s solution was to develop a marketing platform that matched EPICA’s brand DNA to the target’s behaviors. By delivering content through social media, short films and a captivating and cutting-edge brand website, Story helped spark shareable conversations, ultimately guiding the target to try EPICA wines.

“We’ve worked in close partnership with the incredible Viña San Pedro marketing and leadership teams to create an engaging platform designed to celebrate what is most important to that youthful target—living life in the moment,” said Josh Golden, Executive Vice President of Marketing and Strategy for Story Worldwide. “Our EPICA team could not be more proud of the work, the response in the market and now the recognition from the OMMA Awards for best integrated campaign.”

“From the earliest stages of the design of EPICA, we wanted to innovate and find a way to reach the over-21 Millennial consumer in a more effective way,” says Javier Bitar, San Pedro Tarapacá Wine Group’s Chief Executive Officer. “In Story we found the perfect partner to design and execute a digital-media campaign for this launch. We are very optimistic for EPICA’s success in the U.S. market, and this award encourages us to keep innovating and delivering a great experience to our target consumers.”

The seventh annual OMMA Awards honored those advertisers that pushed the potential of online advertising creative. Only work that utilized several elements and showed outstanding use of online media in promotion of brands, products and services received awards in the Integrated Online Campaign category.

Brace yourself adland: The Jolly Green Giant and Cheerios Kid are on the comeback trail.

General Mills is resurrecting the classic characters in two new ad campaigns debuting Monday that will make a nostalgic appeal to convince consumers of the health benefits of the iconic cereal and vegetable brands.

The Giant, who debuted in 1928, will return to take a prominent role in a TV ad for the first time in some eight years via a campaign that marks the beginning of a revival for the big fella. In recent years, the giant had been relegated to low-profile appearances, appearing only as a shadow in some spots. Stuck in a standing position for decades, he will transition from a protector of the land to a kind-friendly “wingman” for parents to help make healthy eating fun, said Yumi Clevenger-Lee, marketing manager for the Giant brand. On Facebook and at an augmented-reality event in New York City in October, he will ask kids to take “One Giant Pledge” to eat one more vegetable a day. “We’re bringing the jolly back to the Green Giant and helping him get his mojo back,” she said.

Read the full article by E.J. Schultz on Advertising Age.

Joe Pulizzi, founder of the Content Marketing Institute, prefaced the award with this quote from the judging panel:

“[Story] is a remarkably well run agency. They clearly get it…they understand the power of storytelling and are proactive about taking their clients into new directions with that storytelling focus. It will be interesting to see future client work and how it will continue to evolve.”

CMI’s Orange Awards honor the leading marketing organizations and individuals wherever great content marketing is happening. Specifically, the Orange Awards recognize excellence in content marketing agencies, as well as achievements made by brand-side marketing professionals around the execution of content marketing. Through the Magnum Opus Awards, they also honor the best content marketing projects on the planet.

Story was nominated in both the Agency category as well as the Content Marketing Program of the Year category, the latter for their work on the Honda Financial Services Newslink newsletter. Only 2012 Magnum Opus Award winners were eligible to be nominated for Program of the Year, and Story was one of ten finalists.

“I’m extremely proud that Story is being recognized for our innovation in using Unity’s 3D platform for advanced mobile storytelling,” said Kirk Cheyfitz, Story Worldwide CEO and Chief Editorial Officer. “Our technology people are the best and this is just one outstanding example of the way they push the frontiers of technology daily. The applications of this approach are virtually infinite.”

Fast-forward to the 15:30 mark to see the nominees, award presentation and acceptance speech by Ben Miller:

Written by Mary Kay Carson, Bats! is wonderfully vivid and interactive. But Bats! is not a game and not just an app. It’s a real book, created by experts in science and other books especially for young children. Bats! breaks new ground in using the iPad to deepen the experience of reading, not to take kids away from reading as so many apps do.

Story had fierce competition in the category, including such unique executions as Chora Museum, Protecting the Secret, and The Thrill Electric.

Unity Award finalists display some of the best and brightest professional and amateur talent within the video game industry across platforms from iOS and Facebook to PlayStation 3 and PC.

Download the award winning Bats! Furry Fliers of the Night on iTunes here