TV Message Wins Telly Award

The University of Wisconsin–Madison’s 1996-97 institutional message for TV, “Cheese,” has earned a national Telly Award for John Roach Projects of Madison, a video and film production company owned by alumnus John Roach.

An Office of News and Public Affairs staff team worked with Roach on development and production of the spot, which was funded through a grant from the University of Wisconsin Foundation. The team included Liz Beyler, Brian Mattmiller, Amy Toburen, Susan Trebach and Barbara Wolff.

The light-hearted 30-second message highlighted what the tagline called “Research for the Real World” at UW–Madison. An elbow-licking Holstein, a Frisbee-chasing golden retriever and a trio of Generation X mountain bikers helped illustrate research efforts to create tastier low-fat cheese, improve surgery procedures for treating canine hip dysplasia and develop stronger bicycle rims.

The spot aired on Badger football and men’s and women’s basketball games broadcast by ABC, ESPN, ESPN2, Creative Sports and SportsChannel.

This was the second UW–Madison spot to win a Telly Award for John Roach Projects. The first was for the university’s 1994-95 message, “Weather.”

The Telly Awards were founded in 1980 to recognize and showcase outstanding non-network and cable TV commercials. The panel of judges is made up of highly qualified production professionals from across the U.S.