In the Belly of the Beast: The Advertising to Kids Conference

Buzz Potamkin attended New York City's first serious look at the increasingly complex and important world of taping into the kids' market. He was pleasantly surprised by the insightful panels and discussion. he 1998 Golden Marble Award Winners were announced at the event as well.

By Buzz Potamkin | Sunday, November 1, 1998 at 12:00 am

The Golden Marbles
A few hours later, the Golden Marble Awards were held at the same venue, as a cap to the conference.The top award winners are included in this issue.

There were two observations that were to me obviously interesting to AWM readers. First, despite all the talk about animation characters, there was virtually no animation presented with a Golden Marble. (Yes, Cartoon Network did win for some on-air promos, but that's not the Trix rabbit, or Tony the Tiger, or any of the other brand building characters we heard so much about.) Either these characters are effective advertising presented with a creative flair, and therefore deserved to win awards that went elsewhere, or, despite all we heard at the conference about animated characters being effective, they didn't win awards because they aren't effective. Which is it? Lastly, I couldn't help noticing that the overwhelming number of awards went to the ad agencies that helped create, organize, and co-sponsor the Golden Marbles.

Buzz Potamkin is an award-winning independent producer, best known for The Berenstain Bears and Dr. Seuss. Before he escaped L.A. for New York, he had been president of Southern Star Prods and then executive vice president of Hanna-Barbera Cartoons.

Thanks to the University of Texas, Austin Department of Advertising, for the selection of quotes used to illustrate this article. The quotes are borrowed from the department's web site, http://advertising.utexas.edu/research/quotes/Q100.html#Advis.