The top accolade at advertising industry body the IPA's effectiveness awards has been awarded to the 'Twiggy' campaign that spearheaded Marks & Spencer's renaissance - and helped keep the acquisitive Philip Green at bay.
The accolade for the campaign marks a double achievement this year for M&S after marketing director Steve Sharp was in June named the UK's top marketer.
The star-studded ads, which also featured famous women including Erin O'Connor and Laura Bailey, replaced the appallingly received "I'm normal" campaign, which showed a British woman of average size and weight running naked up a hill.
A top worn by Twiggy sold more in one week than any other product in M&S history.
Which perhaps begs the question of whether star power is, in the eyes of UK consumers, preferable to people power in ads? Dove's 'real beauty' campaign says no; Jamie Oliver and nine tons of nutmeg sales after the cheeky chappie sprinkled a bit in a Sainsbury's ad says, well, yes.
Moving on, the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising effectiveness awards saw DDB London pick up agency of the year. A gold for the perennially awarded Volkswagen led the agency's haul.
In all six campaigns were awarded golds.
Other notable awards went to Channel 4 as best new client and the increasingly important digital award went to a campaign for, surprise, surprise, Volkswagen by DDB London and Tribal DDB.
Still, in terms of effectiveness it seems that next year it may be pretty hard to beat the impact of 70,000 litres of paint being detonated at a disused council block in an ad that aims to sell a few TVs?
