Rosetta Takes Two International ECHO Awards

PRINCETON, N.J., Oct. 15 /PRNewswire/ -- Rosetta, the largest independent direct and digital interactive agency in the United States, announced today that it has won two Direct Marketing Association 2010 International ECHO Awards. The agency was awarded "Gold" in the Consumer and Business category for its holiday card titled "Snowday" that advanced augmented reality technology by combining motion detection and facial recognition elements and a "Bronze" in the Financial Services category for an iPhone application developed for Nationwide, the first in the auto insurance industry.

The ECHO is the only comprehensive international direct marketing award program recognizing excellence in strategic thinking, creativity and results. Rosetta and Hasselblad USA were the only two Gold ECHO winners from the United States. Of the 93 total awards handed out, only 18 winners were from US-based agencies.

"We have worked really hard over the last year to reinforce Rosetta's capabilities as a leading, full service interactive agency, and these awards validate our progress," said Gary Scheiner, Managing Partner and Chief Creative Officer at Rosetta. "What's more, they validate our process to create more personally relevant customer experiences that drive measurable results. Few agencies can combine strategic insights with innovative ideas and experiences and cutting-edge technology in the way we can."

Rosetta's "Snowday" holiday card initiative unveiled a breakthrough in augmented reality technology in a holiday card sent to agency clients and friends. The technology marked the first time a webcam could track something as small as the human tongue without the aide of QR codes or other "cheats." To generate maximum participation, the card combined motion detection and facial recognition elements and challenged recipients to collect a million digital snowflakes with their tongues in order to support New Orleans youth. Nearly 9,000 card recipients from 60 countries quickly pushed past the goal of a million captured snowflakes. The agency then hosted a "Snow Day" event in New Orleans City Park on February 20 for New Orleans youth.

The Nationwide iPhone application, released in April of 2009, was the first car insurance iPhone app. Rosetta developed the application to build on the brand's positioning of being "On Your Side" by creating a mobile tool that was useful whether you were a Nationwide customer or not. The app was designed to help Nationwide customers find local resources, document an accident and begin the claims process on the spot, and to assist those who aren't Nationwide customers with a variety of other helpful tools. The application has been downloaded more than 80,000 times and has generated thousands of calls. More than 20 percent of these calls were to obtain an insurance quote or find an agent.

Winning selections were judged by direct marketing experts and verified by the ECHO committee, a group of senior members of the direct marketing community. Every year more than 1,000 entries are submitted for the International ECHO Awards from all over the world.

About Rosetta

Rosetta is the largest independent interactive agency in the US and is ranked by AdAge among the top ten overall. Engineered for the connected world, Rosetta was founded in 1998 to pilot brands through an ever-changing marketing landscape and drive measurable business impact. Rosetta enables brands to transform their marketing through the discovery of unique insights about their best consumers' wants and needs and then translating those insights into more personally relevant experiences enabled by technology across all touch points and over time. Rosetta recently acquired LEVEL Studios, a leader in combining content, platforms and devices to create engaging total user experiences.

The combination of a patented approach to market segmentation; technological depth across platforms and devices; world class creative, design and user experience capability; scale and integrated structure; and deep vertical industry expertise have attracted many of the nation's leading brands to Rosetta. The agency's clients include Allergan, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Bristol Myers Squibb, Johnson & Johnson and Novartis in Healthcare; Coach, Express, Jos. A. Bank, OfficeMax and Valvoline in the Retail sector; Citizens, M&T and Nationwide in Financial Services; Marriott in Travel and Leisure; Microsoft, Rogers Communications and T-Mobile in Communications, Media and Technology; and MSC Direct, Wirtz Beverage Group and Lincoln Electric in B2B.

Rosetta is headquartered in Princeton, NJ, with additional offices in New York, Cleveland, Denver, Boston, Chicago and Toronto. The addition of LEVEL Studios, a Rosetta Company, adds west coast presence to Rosetta's footprint with offices in Los Angeles, San Luis Obispo and San Jose.

For more information, visit www.rosetta.com.

SOURCE Rosetta