Satellite News named the winners of its 2004 Golden Orbiter Marketing and PR Awards. Golden Orbiters are given out in four categories honoring the best marketing public relations efforts within the satellite industry for the past calendar year.

“In this very challenging satellite marketplace, this awards program offers the industry a benchmark for excellence in marketing and PR,” Satellite News Publisher and Vice President Joe Rosone said. “From the most outstanding marketing campaigns to the best PR programs, we would like to showcase the tremendous efforts of these satellite marketers and innovators.”

In the “Best Marketing Campaign” category, Satellite News recognized the efforts of BellSouth for its “DirecTV Launch: Drive Sales Among Employees” campaign. BellSouth in August 2004 began offering DirecTV satellite television service to its telephony subscribers in a bundled package. But in order to help boost the knowledge of the service within its own ranks, it launched a campaign to get its own employees to subscribe to the service. The company said its internal sales have exceeded targets, and subsequent educational campaigns within have translated into BellSouth adding almost 109,000 DirecTV subscribers during the fourth quarter of 2004.

An honorable mention in this category goes to National Rural Telecommunications Cooperative for its “Blueprint for Success” campaign developed by NRTC and ad agency Shilling, Sellmeyer & Associates. The campaign developed a comprehensive marketing strategy to increase WildBlue/DirecTV contracts using a cleverly themed “blueprint” campaign that incorporated the logos of all three organizations.

In the “Best PR Program” category, Satellite News issued the award to PointShot Wireless for the effective marketing of its mobile wireless solution. The PointShot Wireless PR campaign was designed to raise awareness of its satellite-enabled wireless Internet solution targeted for use on passenger trains. With a very limited budget, PointShot was able to get the word out about its services and secured coverage in a wide variety of media outlets.

In the “Best New Product Rollout” category, Satellite News awarded the Golden Orbiter to Skylogic Italia Spa for its “Skylogic Broadband Services.” The company built its product rollout on the foundation of a simple phrase, “Seeing is believing,” and built on top of this a campaign that effectively used real life examples, case studies and key demonstrations of the broadband service. According to the company, the results of the rollout included more than 100 sales channel partners around the world, more than 3,000 two-way broadband terminals and the deployment of 14 fully interconnected hubs via eight satellites within the first year of launch. The company also had two key contracts signed in 2004, including a contract to provide broadband services at the 2006 Winter Games and with Nethope, which provides turnkey broadband solutions to more than 100 sites for its humanitarian organization members.

An honorable mention in this category was awarded to iDirect Technologies for the launch of its iDirect iNFINITI Series products. By combining multiple media and PR elements into a coordinated “blitz,” culminating in a highly visible presence at the SatCon 2004 show, iDirect was able to generate significant interest and awareness around a new line of remote VSAT routers based on the iDirect iNFINITI series platform.

Finally, in the “Best Annual Report” category, Stratos was presented with the award for its 2003 annual report. That report was the third of a series of annual reports designed to allow the company to position itself as a global contender in the integrated solutions provider market. Through the theme, “Expanding the boundaries,” Stratos was able to effectively communicate the strengths of its remote communications services as well as the level of completeness of the services it offers. Additionally, the company’s financial information was presented in an “easy-on-the-eyes” manner that allowed for a clear and concise understanding of the company’s financial position in 2003.