Reprinted by permission TVNEWSDAY.com

NAB celebrates those virtues with the Best of the Best Sales Promotions Competition, voted by attendees of the annual NAB Small Market Television Exchange, where station executives go to share—OK, steal—innovative sales marketing ideas.

This year’s winner was Barrington Broadcasting’s WNWO Toledo, Ohio (DMA 71), which found new business in an unlikely place, a municipal ambulance service provider.

In March of 2005, a Toledo kindergartner was struck and killed by a car driven by woman distracted by her cell phone.

WNWO General Sales Manager Bruce Bryan recalled the incident a few weeks later while meeting with MedCorp, an emergency services company then negotiating to renew its ambulance contracts with several Ohio municipalities. Bryan quickly saw the opportunity for MedCorp to promote its services by addressing an important local issue.

The result was “Let It Ring,” a public service campaign urging drivers to focus on the road and ignore incoming calls. Launching in November 2005, the campaign comprised phone safety tips on the WNWO Web site and a sponsored PSA, followed by the creative capper: an artful “Let It Ring” commercial to drive home the public service message.

Bryan enlisted Madhouse Productions to execute the powerful script, a wordless story-in-reverse that travels backwards from a crash scene, to the impact, to the running of the stop light and finally to the moment of distraction: the sight of a cell phone, now made ominous by the natural sound of the ringer in synch with a flashing “Let it Ring” graphic.

The dramatic spot, which also won an Addy Award, ran in news, primetime and during NBC’s coverage of the Winter Olympics.

Bruce Bryan hails from Philadelphia , where public service programming is a proud tradition, but Bryan ’s inspiration was more practical: the need for new business in a competitive market. And “Let It Ring” generated a $20,000 exclusive direct buy from a client who had never before advertised on television.

The campaign was also a big win for MedCorp, which has since renewed its emergency services contracts. The other big winner is the public. “Certainly all of us in TV can relate to times when we maybe paid too much attention to our cell phones,” said Bryan . What’s more, he said, the campaign is easy to understand, and easily translatable to other markets.

Not surprisingly, WNWO has become the go-to station for social marketing campaigns in Toledo. MedCorp has already signed on for a new campaign later this year, and other clients have come calling. WNWO will custom-design the new ads in consultation with Portland-based Bridge Marketing, a consulting firm that specializes in connecting companies and causes.