Car Buyer's Notebook.com

Pontiac was the only United States entry to win a Media Lion. The annual Cannes event recognizes the very best of international advertising, creativity and marketing communications executions from entries representing 75 countries.

“With 44 different models in the mid-size car segment, this program gave us an extraordinary opportunity to establish an identity in a high risk, high reward manner to help introduce an all-new Pontiac with an all-new name,” said Mark-Hans Richer, Pontiac marketing director. “It provided a rare chance to fully integrate advertising, product placement, promotion and public relations activities into a single event that created instant, high impact buzz across America .”

The Oprah Winfrey Show giveaway also sparked huge web traffic increases and consumer interest, global media coverage, and even became a pop culture phenomenon that fueled late night television discussions and political cartoons. As a result, Oprah Winfrey and Pontiac G6 became top search items on Yahoo and Google and within two weeks, Pontiac achieved 87 percent adult G6 awareness, the highest Google.com click-thru rate ever at 17 percent and a 600 percent increase in traffic to Pontiac.com.

“A great relationship with the Oprah Winfrey Show provided this unprecedented opportunity to showcase the G6, and all of us at Pontiac and our involved agencies really appreciate the recognition for the effort and success of this initiative,” said Richer.