Ogilvy & Mather has won the inaugural News Works Agency League competition, which since last March has has been celebrating the nation’s standout newspaper adverts on a monthly basis.
Over the course of this period, the competition has been broken down into monthly challenges, with the best piece of newspaper-based advertising of each month being awarded five points.
In addition to awarding points to the winner, the panel of judges, which changed in each round, could also give points to any standout performances that were up for consideration. These special mentions were generally awarded for exceptional copy, slick art direction or the topicality of the content.
By the end of the competition, Ogilvy received 12 points in total: five for each of its wins for Rebel Sport (February 2014) and Nestle Purina Percare (July 2013); and a pair of points for special mentions from the judges for creative executed for the Auckland Council Elections (September 2013) and Mighty Dog (April 2013).
FCB, which won one challenge and received four special mentions, came in second place with nine points, while DDB’s eight points gave the agency a third place finish.
For the final month (March) of the first round of Agency League, no monthly winners were selected by judges; however M&C Saatchi received another special mention for its NZ Fire Service ad, earning the agency a point on the Agency League Table.
The judges – Jeneal Rohrback (Marsden Inch), Tom Paine (Y&R NZ), Robin Powell (bcg2) – felt that the classified ad was a great use of the medium, and drew the eye in a cluttered space.
{% gallery ‘fireservice’ %}
The Agency League competition will now go into hiatus until July, when it will return to run concurrently with the Newspaper Ad of the Year competition. News Works will however continue to celebrate the ad of the month through to the end of June.
Any advertisements selected as the ad of the month will also go into consideration as part of the yearly competition, which has a grand prize of $10,000.
