Vibrant Media Honors Ask, Microsoft, New Line and Unilever at First Annual Awards...

Vibrant Media Honors Ask, Microsoft, New Line and Unilever at First Annual Awards Competition for Contextual Advertising

NEW YORK--(Business Wire)--
Vibrant Media, the world leading video and contextual advertising
network, presented the Vibrant Awards for creative and strategic use
of in-text and contextual video advertising tonight in Manhattan.
Ask.com took the Gold for its skillful use of contextual advertising
incorporating a dynamic API feed. New Line Cinema won the Silver for
its cleverly enigmatic video campaign promoting the film "23".
Microsoft won the User Engagement Award for the effectiveness of its
LiveSearch campaign and Unilever won the Judges Choice Award for its
dueling "blonde vs. brunette" campaign to promote Sunsilk's Color
Boost. The European Vibrant Awards were held last week in London where
Yahoo!, Fiat and Chrysler won the night.

According to Doug Stevenson, Co-founder and CEO of Vibrant Media,
"In the eight years since Vibrant was founded, in-text advertising has
come of age, and Vibrant has grown exponentially to meet the demand
with offices in eight cities in the U.S. and Europe, an audience of
120 million uniques, and a network of over 3,500 publishers. The
Vibrant Awards are intended to recognize the growing influence of
in-text advertising in the online advertising landscape."

A distinguished panel of industry judges evaluated the nominated
campaigns for creativity, word selection and effectiveness in
communicating the brand message and meeting campaign objectives. The
judges were:

-- David Cohen, EVP, US Director of Digital Communications,
Universal McCann Interactive

-- Sarah Fay, CEO, Aegis, North America

-- Mike Hurt, Director of Ad Planning, Microsoft & Co-Chair, IAB
Digital Video Committee

-- Steve Katelman, Director Strategic Partnerships, OMG

-- Brian Morrissey, Digital Editor, Adweek

-- Jack Myers, President, Myers Publishing, LLC

Thirty-five other campaigns were evaluated by the judges including
Ford Sync, Theraflu, Kraft Oreo and Yellowpages.com.

After reviewing the nominations, UMI's David Cohen noted, "There
were some very clever uses of the medium...I was impressed by the
quality of the submissions." Sarah Fay, CEO of Aegis North America,
commented that the entries highlighted the use of search as a way to
customize a video and serve up a message that's specific to the
environment.

According to Sean Finnegan, Vibrant's CMO, "Contextual advertising
offers the best of all worlds - user control, relevancy, branding,
video, and pricing accountability. The campaigns honored tonight
reflect some of the smartest, most impactful and creative executions
we've seen, and it is our hope that the Vibrant Awards here and in the
UK will continue to inspire excellence in years to come."

The recipients of the 2008 Vibrant Awards follow:

Gold Award

The campaign that won the Gold by epitomizing the skillful use of
in-text, fully leveraging the format strategically and creatively to
engage the consumer and deliver results, is Ask.com. By tapping
consumers' insatiable interest in celebrity, Ask.com intercepted users
by highlighting celebrity-related words -- like Angelina Jolie,
Indiana Jones, NFL, Jay Z, Jennifer Aniston, Mandy Moore, and more -
within related content, and provided a dynamic API feed with
additional search information. This campaign, which was a unanimous
hit among the judges, captured outstanding click through rates across
the board.

Silver Award

The campaign that took full advantage of the in-text medium by
combining the compelling use of words and video to win the 2008 Silver
Vibrant Award was New Line Cinema for the film "23." Using words such
as 'DNA' and 'Titanic' to provoke interest in the film, New Line
Cinema developed a custom unit that teased viewers with a series of
enigmas related to the number 23.

User Engagement Award

Finally, Vibrant's first User Engagement Award was presented to
the campaign that was most effective according to Vibrant's own
measurement tools. Microsoft wanted to gain market share and establish
Live.com as the premier online search engine. Through a custom in-text
unit, Microsoft was able to bring Live.com search results into the
content and engage users by offering relevant, real time information
related to the highlighted word. The Live.com initiative achieved
exceptional click-through and user interaction rates. The campaign
offered Vibrant's user base a powerful resource, placing convenient
search functionality within articles.

Judges Choice Award

This award recognizes a campaign that the judges felt deserved
special recognition for its clever approach. The winner of the 2008
Vibrant Judges' Choice Award is Unilever for Sunsilk's Color Boost.
Using words and phrases including "confident women," "color boost,"
"healthy shine," "shampoo," and "hair color," Unilever aimed to
increase awareness of Sunsilk's Color Boost. By highlighting the words
"blondes" and "brunettes," and creating a virtual duel between them,
Unilever delivered sassy video creative that perfectly illustrated the
notorious battle between blondes and brunettes.

About Vibrant Media

Headquartered in New York, Vibrant Media is a world leading video
and contextual advertising network, giving marketers the opportunity
to deliver highly targeted, user-initiated advertisements within the
text of premium Web content. The company works closely with
advertisers, agencies and Web publishers to plan, buy, deliver and
optimize Vibrant In-Text Advertising campaigns across thousands of
websites. Vibrant Video provides measurable brand engagement through
the largest pay per click video advertising network. Reaching more
than 120 million unique users per month, Vibrant Media manages more
than five billion words per month for top advertisers such as Sony,
Intel, New Line Cinema, Microsoft and Toyota. The company was founded
in 2000 and has offices in New York, Chicago, Detroit, San Francisco,
London, Paris and Hamburg, with more than 200 employees. The Company's
rapid growth has been recognized by both the Inc. 500 and Deloitte
Fast 50 list for two consecutive years. For more information, visit
www.vibrantmedia.com.

Media:
Vibrant Media
Laura Colona, 646-312-6181
laura.colona@vibrantmedia.com

Copyright Business Wire 2008