NEW YORK (EMWNews) July 22, 2008 —

The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB)

today announced that submissions to the fourth annual MIXX Awards hit

record levels, surpassing 2007’s entries by

nearly 40 percent. Since their founding in 2005, the MIXX Awards, the

only advertising awards to recognize creativity and effectiveness, have

evolved into the most prestigious interactive advertising award and have

attracted a distinguished cross-section of the world’s

top brands and agencies.

• This year’s entries include submissions from

  hundreds of agencies—“native

  digital” shops and large traditional ones as

  well.

• These agencies have submitted the work they have done on behalf of

  their clients who encompass every major vertical industry—including

  blue-chip brands, luxury products and services, pharmaceuticals,

  automotive, financial, consumer packaged goods, entertainment and

  technology.

• The campaigns will be evaluated in 18 categories by a cross-industry

  panel of judges that includes senior executives from agencies,

  publishers, and marketing organizations deliberating together—an

  industry first.

“The sheer quantity of submissions and the

caliber of the marketers and agencies represented is a testament to the

increasingly critical role that interactive advertising plays in

marketers’ media plans,”

said Randall Rothenberg, president and CEO of the IAB, the trade

association for interactive media in the United States. “To

think that this awards show is only in its fourth year and has already

attained levels of submissions that are on a par with long established

shows is nothing short of a revolution—showing

how far interactive advertising has come. Now the real excitement begins

as our judges see which work among this extraordinary lineup will make

it to the final round.”

Winners of the IAB’s 2008 MIXX Awards will be

announced at a ceremony in New York City on September 23, near the start

of Advertising Week, a gathering of the media and marketing industries

that typically draws 10,000 professionals to conferences, seminars,

recruiting events, and parties celebrating advertising and its

evolution. The host for this year’s MIXX

Awards is one of the industry’s keenest

observers and practitioners, Rob Norman, Group M CEO, whose regular

riffs on all things interactive have made him the natural emcee for the

evening’s ceremonies.

Last year’s MIXX Award winners included many of the most prominent brand

marketers in the United States, including Anheuser Busch, American

Airlines, The Coca-Cola Company, BMW, Royal Caribbean, Showtime and

Unilever, as well as leading agencies such as Universal McCann, Ogilvy,

McKinney, Digitas, BBDO and Mindshare. In 2007, the gala’s ultimate

honor, Best in Show, went to Goodby, Silverstein, and Partners, San

Francisco, for its super-rich media campaign for Hewlett-Packard, “The

Computer is Personal Again.”

For more information and to view the complete gallery of the 2007 MIXX

Finalists, please visit: www.mixx-awards.com/gallery.

About the IAB:

Founded in 1996, the Interactive Advertising Bureau (www.iab.net)

represents over 375 leading interactive companies that actively engage

in and support the sale of interactive advertising. IAB members are

responsible for selling over 86% of online advertising in the United

States. On behalf of its members, the IAB is dedicated to the growth of

the interactive advertising marketplace, of interactive’s

share of total marketing spend, and of its members’

share of total marketing spend. The IAB evaluates and recommends

standards and practices, fields interactive effectiveness research, and

educates marketers, agencies, and media companies, as well as the wider

business community, about the value of interactive advertising.