Cause Marketing winners: for-profits and nonprofit team up for winning campaigns.(AWARDS)

Equipping classrooms, renovating homes for disabled veterans, fighting climate change and providing the needy with winter coats are among the many challenges tackled by the winners of the sixth annual Cause Marketing Halo Awards.

The Cause Marketing Halo Awards demonstrate the good that can be done when businesses and nonprofits team up," said David Hessekiel, president of Cause Marketing Forum, Inc., the program's organizer. "It's a competition in which we all win." Cause marketing is the strategy of building mutually beneficial alliances between companies and causes.

The Cause Marketing Forum also announced that McDonald's Corporation and St. Jude Children's Research Hospital each received Cause Marketing Golden Halo Awards for their leadership in this fast-growing field. Some 16 category-specific awards were presented at the Cause Marketing Halo Awards luncheon at the Westin Chicago River North on May 29 to campaigns that occurred in whole or in part in 2007. The winners include:

* Best Environmental/Wildlife Campaign

Gold: "Chase The Extraordinary" InterContinental Hotels Group Silver." "Esurance--Save Our Selves," Esurance and Live Earth

* Best Health Campaign

Gold: "Skin Cancer Takes Friends," Proctor & Gamble's Olay and the American Society for Dermatologic Surgery

Silver: "Albertsons Healthy Eaters," SUPERVALU Inc./Albertsons

* Best Social Service/Education Campaign

Gold: "National Vocabulary Championship," GSN, the Network for Games

Silver: "The 50 Million Pound Challenge," State Farm Insurance

* Best Joint Message Promotion

Gold: "Destination Joy Presented by Lay's," Frito-Lay and

Make-A-Wish Foundation of America

Silver: "Esurance--Save Our Selves," Esurance and Live Earth

* Best Print Creative

Gold." "Gifts for Greater Good," Target Corp., The Salvation Army and St. Jude Children Research Hospital

Silver." "The Pedigree Adoption Drive," Pedigree

* Best Transactional Campaign

Gold: "Heroes at Home," Sears Holding Co. and Rebuilding Together

Silver: "Crate and Barrel Distribution of DonorsChoose.org Gift Certificates," Crate and Barrel and DonorsChoose.org

* Best Cause Marketing Event

Gold: "Live Earth: The Concerts for a Climate in Crisis," Live Earth

Silver: "A Day Made Better," OfficeMax and Adopt-A-Classroom

* Best National/Local Integration

Gold: "Warm Coats and Warm Hearts Drive," ABC News' "Good Morning America", Burlington Coat Factory and One Warm Coat

Silver: "Lets All Play ... It Matters," Hasbro and Boundless Playgrounds

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