Is there any industry that congratulates itself more than the advertising industry?  ANDYs, Golden Cubes, Clios, Cannes and The One Show are just a few of the career-making awards that quirky-glasses-wearing, funky-facial-haired creatives covet every spring.  The One Show counters: If you don't deserve an award, who does?  Touché.  But are all these circle jerks an artificial edifice of the crumbling advertising age?  Is their popularity a sign of the dawn of the post-advertising age?  Yes, no, yes, no, yes, no.  Yes, yes, no.

I wonder if Rome had awards shows for the best orgies before the fall.  (That's unfair.)  Truth is, storytelling, branded content and some wonderful campaigns were featured at this year's One Show.  Winner of the highest award, Best in Show, was the campaign for Halo 3 (McCann-Erickson, SF).  The Microsoft/Xbox marketers gave their creative ad team a typically stupid start: Make people who don't know or like Halo or video games buy Halo 3.  Luckily, the team at McCann started over and asked themselves, what is Halo all about?  Their answer: A hero.  A story.  The campaign centered around a meticulously constructed diorama of a pivotal battle scene from the science-fictional war that the game is based on.  At the center of the battle, a subjugated Master Chief (star of the game) looks like he's about to meet his end.  The campaign asks us to believe.  And it touches us online, in cinematic TV commercials, outdoors, in a traveling exhibit of the diorama, in fictional war veteran testimonials, and in many other ways.

Halo 3 was the biggest media launch of any kind in history.  The game's first-day sales topped $170 million, leaving Harry Potter and a slew of Hollywood blockbusters in the dust.  You know this.  But why did it work so well, and why do I love it? 

Simply, it's the stories, the characters and the emotion those things elicit.  Beneath all the fancy Flash work, the commercials and the innovative outdoors, it's about a narrative, a character.  It looks like all the action is happening on the screen when you tool around the wonderful interactive site McCann put together, but really it's all going on inside your head.

That being said, media companies have it easy.  They already build worlds and tell stories.  How can non-media companies harness the power of narrative?  Freixenet hired Martin Scorsese to direct a fake "lost" Alfred Hitchcock film called The Key to Reserva.  I'll let the content speak for itself below.

On the other end of the spectrum, we have a charmingly inane ad for Cadbury's chocolate where a gorilla plays the drums for Phil Collins' "In the Air Tonight."  Cool images.  Fun little film.  Completely vacuous messaging.  The crowd at the show roared.  Sales soared, too.  But why?

Let's go back to our overarching question about the meaning of it all.  Branded content really stole the show: from the nine-minute Scorsese film, to print ads and commercials that told stories, had rich characters and really spoke about the authentic truth of their products.  Next year, and the year after that, we'll see more and more Master Chiefs becoming heroes and fewer monkeys bashing cymbals.

Enjoy the pics of the show and after-party below.

Burger King is named Client of the Year.  The King comes in person to pick up his golden pencil.

The band Bitter:Sweet played the after-party at the Highline Ballroom.