What to know what the best media marketing execution in 2011 was? Look no further than the spinning chickens. It was Cara Operations and MEC Canada‘s succulent special television channel that won Best of Show at Marketing‘s Media Innovation Awards Thursday night.

Cara, which owns the Swiss Chalet brand in Canada, and MEC launched a Rotisserie Channel on Rogers Cable, showing Swiss Chalet’s famous cooking chickens non-stop (similar to a holiday fireplace channel). The first of its kind in the industry, the channel gave the restaurant the opportunity to directly interact with its fans by offering exclusive promotions redeemable through Facebook.

The execution also won gold in the Retail and Commerce. MEC and Cara brought home another gold together in the Content Integration and Branded Content category for its Food Network project with the Milestones restaurant chain. Saint-Jacques Vallee MEC also won a silver in Out-of-Home (Traditional) for Loto-Quebec‘s Mots Cachés project.

OMD Canada won the most awards, bringing home two golds, three silvers and three bronzes for a number of its clients. The golds were awarded for work with McDonald’s and Wrigley Canada (for which it shared top honours in Online Advertising/Experience with BBDO Canada).

Other gold winners included:
• BleuBlancRouge in Television for Chambre des notaires du Quebec
• Cossette Media in Newspaper for Korrigane
• Starcom in Newspaper for Sears Optical
• M2 Universal in Magazine for General Motors Canada
• Lowe Roche in Out-of-Home (Traditional) for Warner Bros. Pictures
• Touché in Out-of-Home (Traditional) for Canac and in Media Spend Under $250,000 for Hydro-Quebec
• Jungle Media in Ambient/Place-based Media for IKEA Canada, and in Digital Out-of-Home for Kraft Confectionary
• Leo Burnett in two categories for James Ready and in Financial Products and Services for Invesco Trimark
• John St. in Social Media for Stanfield‘s
• UM in Integrated/Multichannel and Fast-moving Consumer Goods for Johnson & Johnson
• MPG Media Contacts in Media Research for Fidelity Investments

The MIAs jury (co-chaired by Marie-Josee Lamonthe of L’Oreal Canada and Bruce Neve of Starcom MediaVest Group Canada) also named Rogers the Media Collaborator of the Year, not only for the Rotisserie Channel, but for its Maclean‘s Rethink Issue partnership with General Motors Canada and its new research program for Fidelity.

A photo gallery of winners from last nights event can be viewed here.