FCS Portfolio Awards Honor the Year’s Best in Financial Marketing, Advertising and Public Relations

NEW YORK (May 5, 2017) – Last night, 475 financial marketing professionals gathered at The PlayStation Theater on Broadway for the 23rd Annual Financial Communications Society (FCS) Portfolio Awards. The black tie gala drew attendees from across the U.S. and Canada, who came together to celebrate 2016’s most creative financial advertising, collateral, digital media, and public relations efforts.
PHOTO GALLERY (password: FCS2017, 50% of all photo purchases will be donated to FCS charities!)

The top prize, the Judges’ Choice Award, was won by Prudential’s event marketing campaign “The 4.01K Race for Retirement L.A.” (agency: Droga5)  The work was selected by a consensus from among the judging panel of 29 industry experts who each nominated their favorite from among 400+ entries. 

Taking home “Best in Show” trophies* last night were:

  • Business to Business: UBS (Agency: Creative Solutions)
  • Consumer Retail: OppenheimerFunds (Agency: MRM//McCann & Havas Media)
  • Corporate Image: Prudential (Agency: Droga5)
  • Multicultural: Prudential (Agency: In-House)
  • Digital Media: Mastercard (Agency: McCann New York)

In addition to its Judges’ Choice and Best in Show trophies, Prudential (agency: Droga5 and In-house) scored 18 wins, including 9 Gold awards.  Citi (agency: Publicis OneTeam) scored 16, including 4 Gold awards.  Bank of America Merrill Lynch, including its wealth management brands, scored 15, including 2 Gold awards.

Another 18 firms were winners of multiple trophies, while 25 others received one each. Download the full list of this year’s winners.

The awards were presented by six financial marketing executives:

  • John Greer, AllianceBernstein
  • Lea Stendahl, E*TRADE
  • Jason Ghassemi, Guggenheim Partners
  • Jaime Kalfus, J.P. Morgan Asset Management
  • Céline Dufétel, Neuberger Berman
  • Niharika Shah, Prudential

The lead sponsors of the gala were Dow Jones (Gold Sponsor), The New York Times (Judges’ Choice Award/Judges Breakfast), InvestingChannel (Digital Media Category), and iHeartMedia (Audio Advertising Category), Seeking Alpha (After Party/DJ) and Market Realist (Guest Book).  Highlights of the gala included live and video performances by FCS Board Directors John McCormick, Cindy Pabst, Tim Hart, Tom Jago and Kevin Windorf, who sang (or lip-synched) parodies of popular Broadway tunes – and one Bee Gees song. WATCH VIDEO.

In addition to honoring the work of the financial marketing communications industry, the Portfolio Awards serve as a significant fundraising event for the FCS, which supports three children's charities. Last night, the FCS announced its annual donation of $75,000 to Hope & Heroes Columbia Medical Center, Downey Side Adoption Agency, and Make A Wish Foundation of Vermont. Since 2000, the FCS has donated more than $2.3 million to these three charities.

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About the FCS Portfolio Awards

The Portfolio Awards competition recognizes creative excellence in marketing communications work from financial companies, with Gold, Silver and Bronze trophies awarded for Public Relations; Collateral & Annual Reports; Advertising in print, audio, television, out-of-home, direct mail, and multimedia; Digital Media including display/rich media, email, websites, web video, apps, and mobile; Social Media; and Branded Content. Winning entries were received from financial services providers, including investment firms, credit card companies, investment banks, brokerages and exchanges, insurance companies, mutual funds, ETFs, hedge funds, accounting firms, clearing corporations and commercial banks.

* Best in Show trophies are awarded based on the highest average scores of the FCS Portfolio Awards judging panel, which also awards the gold, silver and bronze awards in each category. This year’s panel comprised 29 senior executives from financial firms and communications agencies.