
Run Aotearoa have won a D&AD award for their Manaakitanga Pencil, in the graphic design self-promotion category.
Run Aotearoa have won a D&AD award for their Manaakitanga Pencil, in the graphic design self-promotion category.
It’s been a big week in adland as the winners of D&AD and The Webbys have been announced. Local agencies walked away with 21 pencils and six Webbys, with Colenso BBDO, Y&R and Assembly picking up gongs at both events.
Last night in London, local agencies showed off their talent at the D&AD Awards to win 12 pencils, including five Graphite Pencils and seven Wood.
Last year, a Kiwi agency picked up the nation’s black pencil at D&AD. And it has been followed up this year with our first black and gold.
There will not shortage of pencils in New Zealand’s creative agencies next month, as they continue to dominate the international awards. This time seven agencies are adding 30 wins to the country’s hall of fame.
The vast majority of ads are an annoyance, and that seems particularly true of the largely ad-funded online realm. How else do you explain the fact that several hundred million people use ad blocking software? But D&AD and BETC Paris have tried to prove that people don’t hate advertising, they just hate bad advertising, with a web browser extension called the Ad Filter.
If you hear Coldplay blasting from the offices of Colenso BBDO and FCB today, don’t be alarmed. They’re probably just celebrating the prestigious Yellow Pencils they won at the D&AD Awards last night.
It was a case of the usual suspects with last week’s announcement of the D&AD Awards nominations, as most of the recent winners at the Axis Awards were also honoured with nominations for the international show. At past events, New Zealand has confirmed itself as a creative hub, and this year’s shortlist of nominees served to reiterate this point. Here’s a breakdown of who’s in contention for the coveted Yellow Pencil awards.
D&AD is renowned as one of the world’s toughest awards shows (hence the brouhaha when Clemenger BBDO took a yellow pencil for Ghost Chips the same night it was denied at Axis). And while New Zealand has further cemented its reputation as a creativity hub and been ranked seventh in the world after the first round of judging, just four campaigns are in line to pick up yellow pencils: Silo Theatre Identity by Alt Group (Branding Schemes/Small Business), ‘Donation Glasses’ by Colenso BBDO for Mars NZ, Pedigree Adoption Drive (Direct Response/TV & Cinema Advertising); ‘Call Girl’ by DraftFCB for Prime Television (Radio Advertising over 30 seconds) and ‘Metamorphosis’ by String Theory for Good Books (Writing for Film Advertising).
…as Les Mills International announces two key staff changes, Ogilvy signs up Ellison, the NBR announces a new admedia reporter, two new in the nzherald.co.nz crew and D&AD chooses its chiefs.
Colenso has followed up its impressive Axis haul with four ‘in-book’ accolades at the D&AD awards, while Saatchi & Saatchi and DDB NZ scored one each. But, unlike last year, there will be no pencils handed out to Kiwi agencies as no local work was deemed good enough to make it through to the nomination stage.
How things have changed over the past few years. New Zealand is now punching way over its weight in the ad business. For decades, New Zealand creatives simply didn’t have the budgets that the bigger markets had. But, as the best ad people do, they have turned this negative into a positive and worked out how to use these small budgets to make big, world beating campaigns.
Just as advertisers often need to push the boat out to capture the attention of modern consumers, the raft of awards ceremonies now competing for entries often need to do the same to capture the attention of the advertising world (recently, AWARD’s Ian sticks out). And, in an effort to compete with—and possibly confront—other events like Cannes Lions and the One Show, the English-based D&AD has gone with a multi-lingual presidential address from its president Simon Sankarayya, where he extols the virtues of creativity and ideas and attempts to speak to the world’s creatives in as many different languages as possible. If there isn’t one already, it can’t be long before someone starts handing out awards for the best call for entries campaigns.
Colenso BBDO and AIM Proximity took home New Zealand’s only Yellow Pencil in the branding category for the Yellow Treehouse campaign at last night’s D&AD awards in London. And it’s in fairly elite company: it was one of only 42 Yellow Pencils and five Black Pencils handed out by the judges.
There have been a plethora of announcements about finalists and nomination lists for international advertising awards in the last few days. And just a select few Kiwi agencies have garnered accolades and praise for their handiwork.
Creative souls rejoice, for there is a brand spanking new outlet for your work – enter The Inspirational Channel. The creative outlet is the result of partnership between YouTube and D&AD, a not-for-profit organisation that represents the international design, advertising and creative communities. The new channel acts as a hub for the latest and greatest videos in commercial creativity.