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McDonald's Restaurants (NZ) walked away with both the Morton Estate Wines Retail Award and the Fairfax Supreme Award for marketing excellence at the 2008 TVNZ/NZ Marketing Magazine Marketing Awards, held at the SkyCity Convention Centre on Thursday 31 July.

McDonald's won despite the enormous burden placed on it by the prevailing campaign that blames purveyors of fast-food for the obesity epidemic. But as the judges remarked, McDonald's has ``demonstrated enormous honesty in taking the myth-buster approach to market, in a brave move to tackle the flack head on''.

TVNZ's head of marketing and head of emerging business, Jason Paris, was awarded the ultimate accolade of Marketer of the Year. In an extremely competitive category, the judges referred to him as ``a world-class marketer delivering strategies of absolute clarity''.

Once again, Not-For-Profit, Consumer Services and Retail, were amongst the most popular categories and the hardest fought, with some very good entries not making the final cut.

With the help of communications partners, TEQUILA and an outstanding viral campaign, Oxfam, this year's winner of the bizambrands Not-For-Profit Marketing Award, overturned the conventions of charity marketing and took the internet by storm generating $640,000 in donations.

A massive turnaround in results created by the relaunch of Fly Buys, saw Loyalty New Zealand take out the Colmar Brunton Consumer Services Award.

Methven's launch of its Maia brand (with Satinjet technology) into the US market helped propel the company from plumbing supplier to beauty marketer, in the process winning it the TVNZ Consumer Durables Award.

In the Smartsource Marketing Award for Fast Moving Consumer Goods category, what else but a win for Heinz Wattie's and its iconic New Zealand Wattie's brand. A steady flow of innovative products, has put Wattie's back on top.

Some of the more exciting entries, demonstrating a shift away from traditional choices, were those for New Media Marketing. Sanitarium Health Food Company, took a 10-year-old All Blacks' sponsorship and a 70-year-old Weet-Bix brand to the forefront of interactive marketing with its Face2Face Challenge, and in the process won the Google New Zealand New Media Marketing Award.

With its first 12 months of astounding results for multiple clients, BrandWorld's Discover Great Ideas masthead marketing success won the NZ Marketing Magazine Business to Business Award.

The M&C Saatchi Rookie Marketer of the Year Winner for 2008 is Marisa Govorko from DB Breweries, whose handling of Monteith's has seen a step change in the performance of the brand.

The 2008 TVNZ/NZ Marketing Magazine Marketing Awards once again reflected the highest standards of marketing this country has to offer.