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And The Telly Goes to... Austin & Williams

April 23, 2008

Long Island, NY - In the highly competitive world of advertising, winning a Telly Award is the equivalent of winning an Oscar. In fact, the Telly statuette is designed by the same firm that makes the Oscar. Agencies and production houses worldwide compete for one of the industry's treasured awards which honor the "very best" television commercials and programs, video and film productions, and work created for the Web. Competing against over 14,000 global entries and winning multiple Telly Awards in the same year is a real feat, yet exactly what Austin & Williams has done.

The Long Island, NY-based strategic advertising and marketing agency, headed up by President Ken Greenberg, took home three Telly Awards in The 28th Telly Awards for its very engaging, very effective Provident Bank campaign. They included a bronze award within the most prestigious of all categories, the B-to-C overall campaign category and two bronze awards in the category of Banking over $500 million in assets. There are only two levels of awards: silver and bronze. What makes these awards even more valuable is that the winners are selected by judges who include top advertising and production professionals and past Telly Award winners.

Rick Chiorando, Austin & Williams' Executive Vice President and Chief Creative Officer, knew the agency had a winning campaign for the Montebello, NY community bank. Even before the campaign launched, "Mrs. P," the prototypical Provident Bank customer, was drawing chuckles for her free-spirited sense of humor. Two of these vignettes – Mrs. P on the NASCAR circuit and Mrs. P bringing animals into the branch – were singled out by the Telly judges, who also awarded the overall campaign.

"With the Mrs. P campaign for Provident Bank, we wanted to move the bank away from traditional financial services marketing and into a more creative, captivating and continuing storyline where the central character was someone with whom potential customers could identify," said Mr. Chiorando. "Here's an accomplished woman who does it all – balances family, work and play – and relies on Provident Bank to keep everything going forward. The underlying message is she knows how to work hard, play hard and knows what she needs in a bank... and trusts Provident to provide it."

The Telly Awards recognized the ingenious and entertaining ways in which the agency was able to capture the spirit of the "full of life" Mrs. P, while also integrating key Provident Bank messages (i.e., commitment to customer service, personalized service, broad business and consumer offerings, connection to the community) and reinforcing the brand with creative use of the logo, other graphic and production techniques. The Provident Bank television campaign was aired on various cable television networks including HGTV, E!, YES, FOOD, Discovery, ESPN, TLC, MSNBC, LIFE, USA, RNN and FOX.

As a Telly Awards-winning agency, Austin & Williams joins the ranks of such international advertising icons as BBDO, DDB, M&C Saatchi and Young & Rubicam, as well as television and film giants, CNN and NBC.

In the 2007 Best of Long Island (BOLI) Award program sponsored by the Long Island Advertising Club, Austin & Williams took home 43 awards including eight "Best in Category" awards, along with the distinction of being "one of the region's most award-winning agencies." The agency repeated its strong performance in this year's BOLI Award ceremony with 70 finalist entries, the most of any other entrant. At this writing, the award winners had not yet been announced. Now, Austin & Williams can add to its credentials, "multiple Telly Awards winner" and the distinction of being recognized as one of the world's best agencies.

Awards notwithstanding, Austin & Williams has been steadily gaining a reputation as the "go to" agency for leading businesses across diverse industries, including the financial, education, healthcare, hospitality, manufacturing, industrial and service sectors. The agency is becoming synonymous with "out-of-the-box creative" which not only captures awards, but also achieves the targeted marketing and sales goals.

Based on Long Island, New York, Austin & Williams is a full-service marketing and advertising agency specializing in research-driven, results-oriented campaigns for clients in ultra-competitive environments such as health care, financial services, higher education and hospitality.