THE BRAND AND 303 SHARE SIX BRONZE PENCILS AT THE NATIONAL AWARD AWARDS
In a strong result for the local industry two Perth agencies picked up six Bronze Pencils between them at this year’s AWARD Awards. The awards were presented tonight in front of a crowd of 800 at the Overseas Passenger Terminal in Sydney.
The Brand Agency lead the way with 4 Bronze Pencils in Radio for their “Find your Animal” campaign for the Perth Zoo. They won single Pencils for three spots from the campaign “Black Hat”, “Lil Penguin” and “Otter” and then also scored a Bronze Pencil for the campaign.
303 were also successful in the Radio Community Service category with a Bronze for the Royal Life Saving “Kid’s Perspective” spot. The agency also pulled off a great coup picking up a Bronze in the tough TV categories for their IKEA “I saw this and thought of you – Glass” spot.
A record number of 10 Gold winners were awarded, with the overall number of winners tallying 206, 13 less than 2007 even though there were 620 more entries across the region. Multiple Gold winners were; Lowe and Rivet Sydney for Welcome Snoop, Leo Burnett Advertising Malaysia for Tan Hong Ming and Exit Films for Schweppes Burst.
AWARD Network of the Year went to the BBDO Network, AWARD Agency of The Year went to Lowe and Rivet Sydney and MTV Networks Australia was proclaimed AWARD Client of The Year.
The winner of the Encouragement Award, recognising those who have demonstrated an outstanding ability to answer briefs with a freshness of thought and creativity, went to ex Gatecrasher Perth creative Brett Colliver, who is now with DDB New Zealand.
The show opened with an amusing piece that poked fun at the industry, produced by Revolver and The Editors before MC Peter Berner took the stage to present this year’s awards.
Winner numbers went up by 19 for Australia (2008: 104 winners, 2007: 85 winners),
New Zealand received 19 less than last year (2008: 45 winners, 2007: 64 winners) and Asia went down by 13 (2008: 57 winners, 2007: 70 winners).
The Gold winners:
• Leo Burnett Advertising Sdn Bhd – Tan Hong Ming – Television & Cinema – Community service & charity, individual – any length
• Exit Films – Schweppes Burst – Craft in Television & Cinema – Direction Design
• Exit Films – Schweppes Burst – Craft in Television & Cinema – Cinematography
• Leo Burnett Advertising Sdn Bhd – Tan Hong Ming – Craft in Television & Cinema – Casting
• TBWA\China – Adidas Olympic – Print – Consumer Magazines, campaign – black and white or colour (20cm x 3 cols or larger)
• Publicis Mojo Auckland – Speight’s Great Beer Delivery – Integrated campaign
• Lowe and Rivet Sydney – Welcome Snoop – Integrated campaign
• TBWA\China – Adidas Olympic, Hu Jia – Print Craft – Art direction
• Lowe and Rivet Sydney – Welcome Snoop – Direct Marketing – Direct Response Advertising, campaign
• Leo Burnett India – Luxor Pop up Interactive – Banner ad (including expanders,
sequential, synchronised)
Top 10 agencies are:
1 Lowe and Rivet Sydney
2 Colenso BBDO Auckland
3 Ogilvy New Zealand
4 George Patterson Y&R Melbourne
5 Leo Burnett India
6 Clemenger BBDO Wellington
7 TBWA\China
8 M&C Saatchi Sydney
9 Clemenger BBDO Sydney
10 Grey Melbourne
Top 5 agency networks are:
1 BBDO
2 TBWA\
3 Leo Burnett
4 Lowe and Rivet
5 Ogilvy
Guests partied away at Ocean Room and Wildfire Restaurants, followed by an after party at Soho Bar until the early hours.

32 Comments
Well done Kurt. Hopefully this is the first of many awards for your excellent work on Perth Zoo.
Well done 303 boys too. That IKEA gong is a big result for Perth
Congrats Brand and 303, awesome news!!
Big fan of the Perth Zoo radio!
Well done Kurt, as well as Josh and Ralph for the 4 Zoo Bronze. Hats off also to the back stage crew at Brand who helped get this over the line, with special mentions to Meredith and Sharon – true creative champions.
Congrats to 303 for the TV gong.
6 Perth pencils – good show.
Good on ya Kurt. Bet the Brand bosses are feeling a bit embarrassed today.
Congrats to all involved. A great result for the respective agencies and creatives involved and a great result for the Perth Industry.
Andrew Tinning.
Sweet revenge Kurt, sweet revenge!
At last someone working at Meerkats wins an award, even if he worked somewhere else at the time.
I think the point has been made about Kurt and the Brand. He’s not the first to be retrenched and he probably won’t be the last. They clearly had a selection criteria and we should all respect that. It’s time to think of other things to say.
Well done Josh, you deserve it!
I personally thought the radio spots were average, but the fact that they’ve picked up makes me wonder. It doesn’t make them better spots in my eyes, but I’m glad Kurt has found greener pastures at an agency that appreciates his talent. The Brand are overloaded with dead wood – overpaid creatives that have fuck all to show for it.
Great, great work on the IKEA spot guys, my fav Perth spot for a couple of years. And how awesome’s Tan Hong Ming, while I’m on the subject of things I love?
Wait a minute, didn’t Josh write some of those Zoo scripts? Can anyone from Brand confirm?
Well done Josh & Ralph. 3 great spots, beautifully written, casted and crafted. Great idea behind it too.
Nah mate, it was a team effort. I think both guys would admit that wholeheartedly.
What’s the most number of gongs Perth has ever got at AWARD? 6 must be up there?
Is it just me but does the radio category look a bit easy to win in?
I bit of a sad indictment of the creative being produced here – we get excited by bronze in radio in a regional award show!? Not that they weren’t deserved but come on…
If this is the best year ever for WA at Award then god help us.
11.58, it seems only four Aussie agencies found radio “easier to win” this year…and two of them are from Perth. 9 pencils to Australian agencies, 5 of them to Perth. If it’s that easy, why are other agencies not winning? And you, did you win one? Thought not. It’s like saying it’s easier to win Olympic gold in the swimming than track and field. It’s a pointless discussion as you still have to beat the others. Stop bagging the fact that we did well. Good onya Brand and 303. Nothing compares 2 U.
I wasn’t bagging Sinead!
Definitely good luck to both 303 and TBA.
My point is that I don’t think the winners in Radio are as good as the winners from the Print category. Don’t you agree Sinead?
Sinead,
Not all gold medals are created equal. I am sure it is ‘just as difficult’ to win a gold in Curling as it is in the Men’s 100 Metre Sprint but I don’t think anyone would argue that they are equal. Getting a bronze in radio at Award is a great achievement but I agree that it should be kept in perspective – surely, collectively, we should be able to get off our butts and do something more than 5 radio bronze.
The reality is that radio is the bottom of the barrel and sinking – sorry but that is the reality – even a Gold Lion in radio would probably get you little more than a condescending “That’s nice” from most serious CDs (outside of Perth).
I guess the fact that the judges only gave metal to 4 Australian agencies suggests that the general standard of radio entries was not great, but that doesn’t make the winners any less worthy. Press was OK but I do think WA should do better in press and outdoor. watch out for XRay in 2009.
Does anybody know if XRay was submitted for judging of AWARD this year?
Yes X-ray was in AWARD. Not good enough. Unlike radio this is a very competitive category. Stuff that won gold award at Cannes only got bronze and silver at AWARD.
The whole discussion about radio is rubbish. The same creatives that won 303’s radio gong also won the TV gong. Did they only try half as hard on the radio?
No, I’m sure they tried very hard on both but I think everyone recognises the TV faced tougher opposition – even in the story above CB wrote “the agency pulled off a great coup picking up a Bronze in the tough TV categories”.
As someone said above, good luck to all the winners.
Okay Sal, if that campaign gets even a finalist anywhere I’ll organise a threesome for you, Sympathy Fuck and Terse Official Comment Guy – as I know you love them so much. 🙂
If it doesn’t win anything – you organise one for me, DG and that blonde chick from the ECU party.
Fair?
That’s the thing about awards. Every show is different as is every judging panels opinion unless of course you are talking an absolute world beater. The Zoo stuff would’ve been entered into Cannes for sure with no result there. i hope for the guys that it fares well at Clio and One Show if they missed last years call and stick it in this time around. I’m sure the 303 lads would’ve entered their iKEA TV into everything that was going last year as well as i seem to recall it was done in time for Cannes Clio and One Show (if not good luck for this year) . Marketforce had ORS work like their Mates Motels print that scored finalists at Cannes and one show but was a no show at Award. At the end of the day, the truly great work wins everywhere usually without question. The stuff that is almost there but not quite will always polarise and therefore be very successful in some places and not so in others.
Can’t wait to see what happens at the PADC’s…
9:19 Can’t wait to see what happens at the PADC’s?!
Yup, pick up a gong here and you’ll be worth at least $1.50 more.
9.19, winning at his last PADC didn’t seem to do Matt Eastwood’s career and earnings much harm.
Actually, it was the now defunct Golden Key Awards (a big TV awards night put on by the TV stations) that Matt did very well at. But I agree with the sentiment – all awards definitely help your career and earnings.
2.12 it’s not about the money it’s about the local industry coming together to celebrate what we do in our own backyard. Its should be a night to be embraced, enjoyed and remembered for not just the work but for the fun of it all. It shouldn’t be devalued and ignored because it’s twenty minutes down the road not twenty hours away in a plane. Get over it and get yourself along to it.