L.F. O'Connell wins 5 BOLI awards

BY DANIEL WAGNER
Newsday Staff Writer

May 10, 2006

L.F. O'Connell Associates turned last year's victory into a winning streak yesterday, taking the top prize at the Best on Long Island advertising awards for the second year in a row.

In addition to best advertising campaign of the year for its work with Prudential Douglas Elliman real estate organization, the Islip-based ad company won four more awards, known as BOLIs, out of the 91 that were presented last night by the Long Island Advertising Club.

The most statuettes went to Austin & Williams of Hauppauge, whose eight BOLIs spanned broadcast, print and electronic media.

"There's been a tremendous amount of really exceptional work in the newer categories - all the Internet-related categories, Web sites, rich media, e-commerce," said Mark Preiser, senior vice president at Walter F. Cameron Advertising Inc. in Hauppauge and president of the ad club.

Six BOLIs went to Curran & Connors Inc., also of Hauppauge, while blumefeld + fleming Llc, of Montauk, West Islip's ACT Communications Group, and Zero Gravity Design Group of Smithtown, each won five. The latter is a small agency of "people let go from CA," according to T. Walter Loyd, the club's executive secretary.

Loyld said yesterday he expected last night's 33rd annual dinner to attract 470 people to the Inn at Eastwind in Wading River. The crowd was expected to be smaller than last year's in part because 23 of last year's nominated firms were shut out of this year's list of finalists, he said. Still, the wealth shared more evenly this time, with no firm matching the nine BOLIs that O'Connell racked up last year.

"I don't know if it's wishful thinking," said Lloyd, "but I believe that over the years I've been here the quality of the work has gotten better."