Silver Siren for The Brand Agency

The Brand Agency has won a Silver Siren for its Perth Zoo campaign Find your Animal’, written by Kurt Beaudoin – now at Meerkats – and Josh Edge (pictured), at today’s announcement in Sydney of the 2009 national SirenAwards for radio advertising.

Judge, Emma Hill, Group Creative Director, Clemenger BBDO said aboutthe Perth Zoo campaign: “Great campaigns win because great executionscan keep coming and coming from the idea, without there being theclassic example of a great script, then a good second one, then an okaythird one. Perth Zoo won because the idea came from an interestinginsight, and they proved endless executions can come from it. I thoughtthe performances and casting were awesome.”

The Gold Siren for bestradio commercial of the year went to a controversial commercialfor Adults Surviving Child Abuse (ASCA), written by Steve Dodds fromagency, Whybin TBWA, Sydney. It also won a Silver Siren as winner ofthe single commercial category. Another spot, titled ‘Rugby’,part of the ASCA campaign, also won a Silver Siren as winner of thecraft category.

The ASCA spot will be automatically entered intothe Cannes Radio Lions to be held next month at the Cannes AdvertisingFestival. The spot, one of three in a campaign, is controversial in itsapproach to promote awareness about child abuse, and the televisioncampaign has been heavily criticised for being “insensitive.” ASCA is anational organisation which works to improve the lives of adultsurvivors of child abuse throughout Australia.

The awards were judged by the Siren Council, comprising creativedirectors and producers from advertising agencies and studios fromthroughout Australia.

Hill said of the winning ad: “It was the stand out ad interms of making you stay, listening and feel something, even thoughthat something was ‘incredibly uncomfortable’. So many radio ads justwash over you and are easy to ignore. This one wasn’t.”

Chief executive officer of Commercial Radio Australia, Joan Warner saidthe Siren Awards provided a great opportunity to recognise excellencein Australian radio advertising and highlight the great work beingachieved.

“Each year the Siren Awards continue to raise the bar in terms ofcreativity and originality. There have been nearly 600 entries thisyear – a fantastic result which shows how important this Award hasbecome. Also the success of past winners and entrants at Cannes istestament to the fact that great work is being achieved with radio adsin Australia,” Ms Warner said.

The winners were announced at a breakfast in Sydney today, hosted byJonathan ‘Jono’ Coleman and Ian ‘Dano’ Rogerson, from the drivetimeshow, “The Jono & Dano Show”, on-air on WS-FM (Sydney), GOLD 104(Melbourne) and 4KQ (Brisbane), as well as many regional stationsacross Australia. The breakfast was followed by a one day seminar onhow to write and produce good radio ads, called “Getting Radio off thePage”.