First MEGAs award winner for PR Campaign goes to Weber Shandwick

Weber Shandwick were among the winners at the first MediaGuardian Awards for Innovation, or MEGAs, presented last night.

The awards, launched to recognise cutting edge innovation across the media industry, received more than 400 entries from different sectors.

Shandwick won the award for "PR Campaign of the Year" for the KFC 'Face from Space' campaign, which involved the execution of a giant 87,500 square foot KFC logo in the Nevada desert - claimed to be the first brand logo visible from space (You can view the associated press release here):

But, according to googlesightseeing.com, the KFC logo was not the first logo (or brand) visible from space. In fact, it’s debatable whether or not it’s even really visible from space at all (See the introduction to this book for a more complete examination of this argument). Either way, KFC’s big logo isn’t actually that big.

The first logo visible from space should have gone to the Readymix logo in the Australian desert. It measures 3.2km across, and 1.6km high and has been there since 1965, so as the first logo visible from space this probably qualifies:

Not to take the the prestige of winning the award away from Shandwick though, as the award went to the best PR campaign rather than for the first logo to be visible from space, and for that Shandwick presumably deserved to win the award.