They’re renowned as tough awards to win. And that was apparent at the AWARD awards ceremony in Sydney late last week, with Colenso BBDO the only Kiwi agency to pick up a gold for its viral film for Levi’s Rear View Girls, which was one of just 16 golds handed out on the night.
Pak N Save’s Stickman is a cheeky wee chappy. And he recently peeved off a few militant vegetarians and upholders of political correctness with a recent Meat Week ad. But rather than bow down to the vocal minority, as often seems to be the case these days, DraftFCB and Foodstuffs had a bit of fun instead and decided to placate the flesh avoiders with a modified version.
Throughout history, the arrival of new mediums has continually upset the apple cart. The printing press, the novel, film, sound, TV, 3D, and the list goes on, have all changed the way humans tell stories—and all taken a long time for the storytellers to come to terms with. And, as Frank Rose, Wired writer, media analyst and author of a new book called The Art of Immersion said this morning at a breakfast hosted by DraftFCB, exactly the same is true in this digital age.
Publicis Mojo’s executive creative director woes have continued, with Mike Barnwell resigning after 15 months in the job to return to his South African homeland and take up a role as the executive creative director at DraftFCB Cape Town.
Success is fairly subjective in adland. Depending on who you’re talking to, it can be about the cash earned, growth rates achieved, accounts gained or creative plaudits won. And while DDB Group hasn’t quite had the run of things when it comes to awards of late, its “exceptional” business performance over the past year was enough to win it the 2012 Fairfax AdMedia Supreme Agency of the Year last night at the Imperial Lane Bar & Restaurant, adding to the agency of the year titles it has recently been awarded by the NBR, Campaign Brief and Campaign Asia Pacific. DraftFCB was a close runner-up, justONE won specialist agency of the year and OMD took the media title.
.99 hasn’t had a particularly good run of it recently, after handing the keys to both Air New Zealand and Vodafone over to DraftFCB. But we thought we spied a glimmer of light when we saw this leap year-related billboard for BP.
A galaxy of marcomms stars—as well as a few comets and plenty of space dust—graced the Langham last Friday night to see DraftFCB clean up at the RSVP Awards and, ah, no-one clean up at Nexus. So, for your viewing pleasure, here are some pictures of people hugging their colleagues, posing awkwardly on stage as they get photographed and shaking Oliver Driver’s hand.
DraftFCB saw its creative director Chris Schofield take up a role with DDB in October last year, following on from Justin Mowday’s shift there a year or so before. And, in the latest example of the ongoing inter-agency hostage swapping saga, DDB’s deputy creative director Regan Grafton has joined the fray as joint executive creative director with Tony Clewett. Executive creative director James Mok will become group ECD of Australasia.
One of the great ironies of the advertising industry is the fact that advertising agencies, despite dispensing plenty of advice to their clients about the need to continue spending up large (especially during a recession), rarely advertise themselves. But DraftFCB has been the exception to that rule in New Zealand in recent years and it caught our attention with a campaign that showed off some of its remarkable powers of persuasion in Air New Zealand’s Koru lounges.
DraftFCB was told it had won the Vodafone account on Friday afternoon. And as if that wasn’t enough good news for one day, it also won the Grand Prix at the RSVP and Nexus Awards that night for the Electricity Authority’s What’s My Number? campaign.
It took a bloody long time, but DraftFCB has won the Vodafone account ahead of Ogilvy and .99, and AffinityID, which has done some project work for the company in the past, has won the CRM business, bringing a long-awaited end to the uncertainty—both for the agencies involved in the pitch and for the local Vodafone team thought to have been waiting on a decision from global HQ.
“The review will be completed by mid-October 2011.” Those were the words used in a statement sent by Vodafone in late July last year after it decided to shift from its agency of four years Colenso and move the troops up the road to .99 during the RFP process. Now, almost seven months later, and after a pitch was held in December, no decision has been made. So what gives?
The holy grail of accounts is up for pitch. With an estimated budget of about $1 million, the Government’s two major public information programmes are again up for grabs; but this time, the current Electricity Authority’s agency, DraftFCB, will be leading on the creative side of one of the programmes, as well as pitching for the account.
In what will be a big blow to incumbent agency .99, Air New Zealand has chosen DrafFCB to be its lead agency after a competitive pitch, starting in March. But there is still some mystery surrounding the set-up of the account because Saatchi & Saatchi, which a few industry big mouths had thought was looking good to take the win, has also been included on the airline’s agency roster.
Big ups to Colenso’s Nick Worthington (pictured) who was crowned best executive creative director in the world, and James Hurman the second-best planner. Colenso BBDO Auckland was ranked fifth best agency in the world on this year’s Big Won list by Directory. Big Won awards are won by winning the most awards. Worthington can now brag that he’s officially got a Big Won.
He’s released his first book, he’s chaired the Effies and he’s chewed people’s ears off at Christmas parties all around town about the importance of creativity in business. And now Colenso BBDO’s planning director James Hurman has his say on 2011.
After plenty of rigorous discussions between various marketing big-brains, the finalists of the 24th RSVP and Nexus Awards have been announced and DraftFCB is sitting pretty with 12 nominations across the Nexus, RSVP and RSVP Craft categories, followed by Colenso/AIM Proximity with eight (plus three more for AIM Proximity on its own), justONE with seven, Ogilvy with five and Affinity ID with four.
According to Nielsen’s AIS data, Revlon spent $4.1 million on advertising in New Zealand in 2010 and $3.3 million to the end of October this year (base rate card value), largely in magazines and TV, and, as part of a global alignment, MediaCom has taken over the media planning and buying in New Zealand from DraftFCB.
After a successful pitch for Maritime New Zealand’s business earlier this year, feast your eyes on the first ad produced by DraftFCB for the Maritime NZ: ‘Don’t be a clown, wear a lifejacket’.
ACC has appointed DraftFCB for its advertising, marketing and design services. The incumbents were Clemenger and AIM Proximity.
Flying in the face of all the election and Christmas related advertising that has been dominating our newspapers lately, November’s winning ad, by Special Group, was created for the Newspaper Publishers’ Association using an innovative full page designed to be folded so the whole newspaper could be posted to someone overseas to celebrate the Rugby World Cup All Blacks win.
DrafFCB’s had a pretty good year on the awards front. Hell, it even helped to halt inflation with its ‘What’s My Number’ campaign for the Electricity Authority. And that campaign has won Yahoo!’s Q3 Digital Strategy award, following on from a win earlier in the year for its BMW Summer Sale campaign.
Who’s it for: Mitre 10 Mega and Plunket by DraftFCB and Flying Fish
Why we like it: We’re suckers for time-lapse, especially when it’s used to promote a campaign helping to raise money for Plunket. A good idea, well-made and a nice original track from …
The Air New Zealand business is thought to be up for pitch, with a rumoured list of Saatchi & Saatchi, DraftFCB, Special Group and the incumbent .99/Colenso all gunning for one of the country’s best-loved brands.
One of the surprises of the Effie awards was not seeing DrafFCB and The Electricity Authority’s What’s My Number campaign up on the podium. Turns out it was ineligible for this year’s competition because of the dates it ran, but it looks set to be a shoo in for next year, because you don’t get much more effective than a campaign that ends up influencing the nation’s interest and inflation rates.
The credentials phase for the Vodafone pitch is over and, just like Tourism New Zealand, it seems the potential suitors have been whittled down to four: Ogilvy, DraftFCB, .99 and Affinity ID/Federation.
Advertising agencies rarely advertise. But do we detect something of a trend? DDB put out a one-off ad to celebrate what would have been the 100th birthday of one of its founders a while back, and M&C Saatchi attempted to clear up some confusion in the marketplace after ‘Pink fist-gate’. But DrafFCB takes the title of best self-promoter after sponsoring Mad Men on Prime and using some of its clients’ ads to show off a bit. Now, after a fantastic performance at this year’s Effies, it’s doing a bit more shouting with an entertaining, rugby-related full page ad that featured in the Business Herald on Friday.
DDB has been on the hunt for a creative director since Adam Kanzer departed in mid-2010 and, just as it did when Justin Mowday shifted from DraftFCB to take up the managing director role, the Death Star has managed to secure the services of another senior DraftFCBer: creative director Chris Schofield.
As MC Alison Mau said at the Effies last week, those attending advertising events are always the best dressed *awww shucks*. And, as you can see from the glamour shots below, the gladrags were dusted off once more as revellers gazed in awe at the winners on Thursday night at Sky City. If these don’t satisfy your insatiable desire for event photos, you can also check out the best dressed award contenders here and some afterparty photobooth action shots here.[nggallery id=14]
