Lapiz wins Best of Show at 12th Annual Ad Age Hispanic Creative Awards.

Lapiz took top honors at Ad Age’s 12th Annual Hispanic Creative Advertising Awards winning Best of Show for the radio spot “Batalla” promoting Procter & Gamble’s Bounty brand. LatinWorks joined Lapiz as the most awarded agencies with LatinWorks picking up seven awards in four categories for its Cine Las Americas work alone. The winners were announced at an awards gala held Friday night, October 8th in Miami, at the end of the AHAA Annual Conference.

The judges selected the Lapiz ad for Bounty paper towels as Best of Show for its originality, with extra points for creating theater of the mind in a challenging medium and difficult category. The radio spot sounds like a real battle fought by foods that cause messy spills and whose names can be pronounced or chanted to mimic soldiers marching, artillery fire and soaring aircraft, ending with the tagline: “For cleaning battles in the kitchen, choose Bounty.”

In addition to the Best of Show, Lapiz picked up three other awards for P&G work with silvers for another Bounty radio spot, “Incompleto;” a magazine ad for Gain detergent; and a TV bronze for the Pepto-Bismol spot “Nice Burrito.” Another P&G agency, Wing, won a silver award for the TV spot “Lavadero” for Downy Ultra detergent.

LatinWorks won four gold and three silver awards in the TV, radio, magazine and integrated categories for the Cine Las Americas film festival campaign that mines the bizarre behavior of real Latin American leaders with the brilliant tagline: “If this is our reality, imagine our films.” Additionally, they won prizes for Mars’ Starburst and Twix brands, Burger King and Parental Control Bar software.

This year’s winners demonstrated creative thinking that reflected deep Hispanic insights, which in some cases were then used to also lead general market work: a growing trend for Hispanic agencies. Volkswagen of America and Creative On Demand won three silver awards in the TV, Bicultural Hispanic and Beyond Hispanic categories for Spanish and English versions of “Fake Out:” a humorous spot promoting VW’s carefree maintenance, which ran in both markets.

The gold in the Interactive Category went to Conill for its YarisYarisYaris Web site for Toyota, and La Comunidad won three awards in the TV category for MTV, including a gold for “Bird.”

The fastest-growing category this year was Direct Marketing. The separate direct marketing jury awarded two golds: one for a State Farm campaign by DraftFCB, which is Hispanic-led but also is being used in the general market, and the other for The Vidal Partnership’s “Balon de Troya” promotion for the NFL.

“The creative excellence demonstrated in the winning work — and the entries submitted — is a testament to the growth and evolution of Hispanic-specialized agencies,” says Jessica Pantanini, AHAA Chair and COO of Bromley Communications. “No longer is Hispanic taking a back seat, in fact, Hispanic agencies are now leading total market campaigns. AHAA congratulates the winners and the agencies that submitted entries for judging. We continue to raise the bar each year with superior creative and sharper insight that is changing the way advertisers communicate and is delivering consumer loyalty and bottom-line profit for brands.”

The 2010 jury of judges included Jury President Icaro Doria, group creative director of Goodby, Silverstein & Partners; Curro Chozas, associate creative director of Grupo Gallegos and president of Circulo Creativo; Carlos Tornell, VP-creative director of Bravo Group; Norberto “Norbi” Zylberberg, creative director of LatinWorks; Maria Bernal, associate creative director of Lapiz; Daniel Marrero, partner, Creative On Demand and AHAA Board member; and Kathleen M. Haley, director, multicultural marketing for Hewlett-Packard Company. The Direct Marketing Jury included: Alberto Ferrer, managing partner, director of direct and digital marketing, The Vidal Partnership; Chiqui Cartagena, senior vice president, multicultural marketing, Story Worldwide; and Vince Andaloro, CEO, LatinPak. The Interactive Jury included: Alberto Ferrer, Chiqui Cartagena and Gustavo Garcia, executive creative director, Media 8 Digital Marketing.