Two Silicon Prairie startups have emerged from a field of 12 today taking home top prize in Ad Age‘s Digital West Brand Hacks competition. Thanks to a tip from Jordan Lampe of Dwolla, we’ve learned Zaarly, a startup based in San Francisco with offices in Kansas City, took the “Social Hack” portion and Dwolla, a startup based in Des Moines, took the “Mobile Hack” portion, sharing the honor with Placecast. (Photo from adage.com)
According to recent article on Ad Age’s website, the winner of the Social Hack gets a $25,000 project or partnership from American Express to develop a new concept. The winner of the Mobile Hack* will have the opportunity to work with digital agency Ignited to bring its technology to brands.
“The point of this is to bring some unknown – or in some cases little-known – startups with great ideas and put them in front of an audience of brand marketing execs and CMOs.” Ad Age writer David Teicher recently wrote about Brand Hacks. David Wolf, American Express VP-global business and market development, judged the social hacker and Eric Johnson, president and founder of digital agency/incubator Ignited, judged the mobile hackers.
Also competing in the Social Hack were startups Want!, Hatch’d, Voyurl, Bre.ad and Milk Inc., and in the Mobile Hack were Sonar, GoldRun, Glympse, Banjo and Stampt.
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*When published, this sentence mistakenly stated “Social Hack.” It should be “Mobile Hack.”
