MRP Leading Agency at Business Marketing Association's Pro-Comm Awards

Stamford, Connecticut -- Marquardt & Roche and Partners won two Best of Division titles at the 2001 Pro-Comm Awards — more first place advertising awards than any agency in the northeast, and was one of only two agencies in the country to win two Best of Division honors in the advertising categories of this year's contest.

The 2001 creative awards contest sponsored by the Business Marketing Association had nearly 1,000 entries judged by both corporate marketing communications executives and ad agency creatives.

MRP won first place awards in color page and color spread categories. The single page victory was on behalf of FUJIFILM Medical System's DryPix imagers. The ad humorously demonstrates the relatively small size of Fuji's new radiography imager by showing the 90-pound machine atop a doctor seated on a commercial airline as he happily reviews films. The headline: "First class image quality in a laptop size. (Depending on the size of your lap.)"

The agency's color spread win was for Duracell Activair hearing aid batteries. The ad drew audiologists' attention to a delightfully simple Duracell innovation. While other hearing aid batteries are kept fresh with tiny (quarter inch) peel-off tabs, Duracell's new inch-long EasyTab provides the same freshness function while at the same time serving as a handle for the sometimes frustratingly-small batteries. The ad shows a long row of ordinary tiny-tabbed hearing aid batteries with an EasyTab mixed in. The headline offered the easy-challenge: "Notice anything different about our new hearing aid battery?"

Agency president Howard Meditz thoughtfully expressed his appreciation for the two victories: "We won awards for making a relatively big product seem small and for making a relatively small tab look big? No way!"

This year's awards mark the ninth consecutive year that MRP has been recognized by the business-to-business marketing community's most prestigious creative competition.