New York, N.Y., January 22, 2009 – The CLIO Awards, one of the world’s most prestigious international advertising and design competitions honoring creative excellence and innovation in the industry, today announced that Tony Granger, worldwide creative director at Young & Rubicam (Y&R) Incorporated will kick off the 50^th Anniversary CLIO Awards with a keynote interview regarding the cultural differences in global advertising.

Ellie Parpis, creative editor at Adweek will interview Tony about how a leader creates an environment that fosters award-winning work recognized around the world. With his extensive knowledge and global expertise, Tony will also speak to the cultural differences, opportunities, challenges, and future of the global advertising industry.

The CLIO Awards will be celebrating its monumental 50^th Anniversary at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas, May 12 – 14, 2009. This year’s festival will feature five, new distinct award shows honoring the diversity of the creative community by spotlighting each medium with distinct events. Festival delegates will have the chance to network, dine and socialize with the greatest creative minds in the industry, and participate in three days of educational conference sessions and panels.  

Call for Entries Deadline Extension
In other news, the online entry system for the Advertising Awards, currently open at www.clioawards.com, has been extended. Entries first appearing between January 1, 2008 through December 31, 2008 must reach CLIO offices in New York no later than February 13, 2009. For entries originally appearing in the first quarter of 2009, the deadline is February 23, 2009.

The 50^th Anniversary CLIO Awards recently added, for the first time ever, a new Strategic Communications/Public Relations Awards category, which will be recognized during the Communications Awards show. The entry submission deadline for the Strategic Communications/Public Relations category is February 13, 2009 for any campaign appearing between January 1, 2008 and December 31, 2008.

For additional information, please visit www.clioawards.com.

About The CLIO Awards
The CLIO Awards is one of the world’s most recognized awards competition for advertising, design and interactive. Celebrating its 50^th Anniversary in 2009, the CLIO Awards has maintained its original commitment to celebrate and reward creative excellence, honoring a powerful form of communication and its impact on modern culture. At the same time, the CLIO Awards remains focused on evolving with the industry in order to acknowledge the most current, breakthrough work. To this day, CLIO’s iconic statute is the most widely recognized and coveted symbol of the industry’s creative accomplishments. The CLIO Awards are produced by Nielsen Business Media, a part of The Nielsen Company, a global information and media company.

About The Nielsen Company
The Nielsen Company is a global information and media company with leading market positions in marketing and consumer information, television and other media measurement, online intelligence, mobile measurement, trade shows and business publications (Billboard, The Hollywood Reporter, Adweek). The privately held company is active in more than 100 countries, with headquarters in New York, USA. For more information, please visit, www.nielsen.com.