DALLAS, Sept. 25, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Richards/Lerma was named Independent Agency of the Year at the 2017 FIAP Awards. FIAP, an international festival held since 1969, was hosted in Buenos Aires, Argentina, this year and summons the most prestigious and competitive advertising agencies of Latin America, the U.S., and Europe. Agencies submit their best work for several categories covering TV, print, radio, digital, audiovisual production/techniques, media innovation and so forth, in hopes of achieving recognition. The event is considered one of the two most important festivals in the advertising industry.
Richards/Lerma advanced in several categories, which contributed to their cumulative takeover and title of Independent Agency of the Year. The most notable contribution came from their 2017 campaign for football's biggest game, titled #AvoSecrets, for Avocados From Mexico. The campaign won Gold in the Real Time Content category and is a testament to the agency's digital and social prowess, which can be effective with mass audiences in highly competitive attention spaces such as the Super Bowl.
As the digital agency of record for Avocados From Mexico, the team set out to push the envelope with #AvoSecrets, creating an engaging narrative that commenced several weeks before the Super Bowl. The story began with the brand announcing they had found a smartphone full of hidden secrets with no known owner. People on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter were encouraged to help unlock functions of the phone and find hidden secrets for a chance to win prizes.
Next came arguably the most innovative aspect of the concept: When people visited the site, the majority of which happened naturally on mobile, the site design simulated having someone else's phone in hand with a notifications page and seventeen fully functional apps (Instagram, Spotify, photos, voicemails, calls, etc.). Visitors did not yet know that the phone they had been exploring and sharing content from to win prizes, would end up being the same phone of a main character in the Super Bowl commercial. The agency had successfully blurred the line between fiction and nonfiction, between digital and broadcast, between the virtual and the tangible.
Pete Lerma, Founder of Richards/Lerma commented, "We see ourselves as a next generation agency, and innovation is in our DNA. It's incredibly important to us that we can live up to that year after year. I couldn't be more proud of the team, or more grateful to our clients."
In response to the award, Alvaro Luque, President of Avocados From Mexico, stated, "We're proud of the forward-thinking work done with our agency partners, and winning gold for #AvoSecrets is a tremendous accomplishment well deserved by the team."
About Richards/Lerma
Richards/Lerma is a full-service branding and creative agency dedicated to crafting insightful and relevant communications for the multicultural market. Based in Dallas, Richards/Lerma was founded by Pete Lerma and Stan Richards, Creative Director of the nation's largest independent branding agency, The Richards Group. Current clients include Avocados From Mexico, Bud Light, Budweiser Chelada, Chrysler, Clamato, Dr Pepper, LALA, MetroPCS, The Home Depot and several others. Richards/Lerma can be found online at richardslerma.com, on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram as @richardslerma.
About Avocados From Mexico
SOURCE Richards/Lerma