Brand wins two Golds at national Outdoor Awards
The Brand Agency has won two Golds at the 2010 national Outdoor Awards for its ‘Big Brother at the Northbridge Piazza’ outdoor execution for the Drug and Alcohol Office.
Created by Mitch Mitchell and Warrick Sears, the campaign usedmovement tracking technology and a giant screen in the hub of Perth’snightlife district to warn drug users that police can test and catchthem if they drive while under the influence of drugs. As revellerswalked past, their image was projected onto the screen and a speechbubble was added over their head implying what they may haveeaten/drunk/ingested that night.
It won Gold in the ‘Most Innovative Use of Outdoor’ and ‘Government/Public Service’ categories. Brand was the only Perth agency to win at the awards.
Sydneybased advertising agency Jack Watts Currie took out top honors with Australian Red Cross ‘For the love ofhumanity’.
The campaign used a billboard that appeared to befrom a frustrated wife, fed up with her husband leaving the toilet seatup. During the ensuing media coverage it was leaked that the billboardwas a stunt a raise awareness of a Facebook based fundraising campaignfor Red Cross.


JWC wins a $10K prize to attend an International Art Show in Berlin,Miami or Switzerland and the golden pigeon statuette.
A total of 21 awards were given out at the awards ceremony held inSydney last night, hosted by comedian Kitty Flanagan – seven gold, silverand bronze to a range of agencies from Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane andPerth.
Five creative teams from four agencies were in contention for the major award, all of whomreceived gold pigeon trophies for various campaigns including The BrandAgency, DDB Sydney and two teams from US Sydney.
Of theseven golds, two were awarded to JWC’s Red Cross campaign, two to The Brand, US Sydney also picked up two golds. One was for Nike’s ‘Liveboard’, featuring live headlines created fromfootball action happening on the field at the Socceroos’ last homematch before heading to the World Cup. The other was for EA Games’ ‘ToySoldiers’, launching the epic war game ‘Battlefield’ Bad Company 2,with toy soldiers downing their guns and pick up game controllers towage a different type of battle. It also won silver for Hachette’s’Twilight Dots’.
The remaining gold went to DDB Sydney forMcDonald’s ‘Playland’, which involved creating an adult sized Playland to make adult passersby feel like kids again. This campaign also won asilver award. Three silvers went to The Three Monkeys for The CancerCouncil’s ‘Sun Sound’. Other winning agencies on the night wereJayGrey, George Patterson Y&R, Colman Rasic and Ward6.
TheOutdoor Media Association’s chief executive Charmaine Moldrich praisedthe standard of this year’s entries. “We have seen work of a very highcaliber, which showcases just how creative a medium Out-of-Home canbe,” Moldrich said. “What’s more, in only our second year of runningthe Awards we are delighted to have received over 200 entries from morethan 50 creative agencies across Australia.”
Jonathan Kneebone (left), creative director of The Glue Society, was thenon-voting chairman of the international judging panel comprisingSebastian Wilhelm (Santo, Buenos Aires), Matt Keon (18 Feet &Rising, London), Mark Waites (Mother, London), Joaquin Molla, (LaComunidad, Buenos Aires), Dave Bell (Kessels Kramer, Amsterdam/London),Carlos Bayala (Madre, Buenos Aires) and Sarah Barclay (JWT, New York).
Kneebone said he had deliberately chosen international judges so that all award winners could feel they had produced something “of a world class standard”.
“I hope the winners enjoy the International Art Show. It’s certainly an inspiring prize and potentially a little less aggravating than having to scratch through 10,000 instant scratchies like last year’s winners,” Kneebone said.


25 Comments
Well done Mitch and Warrick, this looks awesome. I would love to have seen it but I don’t get into northbridge much. How come we never saw it up on the blog?
Well done guys, you deserved it!
Well done boys!! Well deserved, awesome idea.
Great result guys -can’t believe the overall winner though -go figure
Well done lads-I’m sure it will catch the judges eye today as well.
Where is the credit? The ‘Big Brother at the Northbridge Piazza’ was actually my idea.
Woz. Mitch. Bloody legends.
Awesome work guys!
On a side note, CB, please get rid of the CAPTCHA… this is the 3rd time I’ve tried to post this message. I can’t read the frikkin letters.
I’m pretty sure the North bridge ad was created by Harley Spick, not Mitch and Warrick????
Sorry 12:26 but without the CAPTCHA we get a zillion auto-generated spam comments every day that are an absolute pain in the bum to wade through.
I’ve deleted several legitimate comments by mistake because they’ve been buried amongst the junk.
We appreciate your persistence.
Martin Trevaskis
I like captcha. It gives me a new name everytime I post. Much more satisfying than dull old “Anonymous”
Wow, massive result gents. Big idea.
Hmmmm.
http://harleyspick.com/drug.html
5.51
Oi stop ripping off my idea. Branding yourself as the current reCaptcha only works if one of us does it. “Dav Teneshfar”, indeed.
Well done Brand! Two Golds at a national competition, with that jury is no mean feat.
Dangerous move putting your folio up there Harley’s Pick. I wouldn’t hire you. Great result Woz and Mitch.
If Harley Spick continues with his one man crusade on here, we could well see the return of Terse Official Comment from the Brand Guy before the week is out.
Go for it…
I was hoping to track down a video record of this gold winner. After all, in the digital age surely there should be an online record somewhere. However all I could find under “Big Brother at the Northbridge Piazza” was “This video has been removed by the user” on You Tube and “Sorry, “339: “Big Brother at the Northbridge Piazza” for Drug and Alcohol Office of WA” was deleted at 1:54:23 Tue Jul 13, 2010″ on Vimeo. Nothing on CB prior to this win. Nothing on the Brand Website. Strange.
It was Harley’s idea. Ask the question CB and give Harley the credit he deserves..
is this harley spick thing for real or am i missing a joke somewhere?
I thought that work looked familar. Well done Harley.
Warrick and Mitch; what’s the deal with Harley? Was his credit an accidental omission? Or was his involvement too minor to warrant it? His visual lacks the detail to indicate one way or the other.
Oh calm down everyone.
1. The execution is legitimate. It first appeared October 1, 2009. It was entered in our awards at the beginning of this year. It didn’t make a finalist but that’s down to the vagaries of award judging.
2. The press release from the Outdoor Awards just said ‘The Brand Agency’ – no individuals were credited. I credited Warrick and Mitch, working off the entry form submitted for our CB Awards. Harley Spick wasn’t listed but before you all leap on that as being some kind of sinister plot to deprive him of his moment in the sun, The Brand’s entry forms were a bit all over the place this year. Warrick himself wasn’t listed on a radio entry, which saw him miss out on a credit and points in our rankings. So it was an honest mistake.
3. Harley was listed on the entry form submitted for the Outdoor awards and as I understand it, Mitch acknowledged him in his acceptance speech at the awards presentation. I found this out subsequent to posting the story.
4. The smart thing for young Mr Spick to do was to be a little less indignant and post a comment saying something along the lines of “well done guys, it was pleasure working on this with you.”
5. By the same token, someone from The Brand Agency could have posted a comment acknowledging Harley’s contribution. I put the story up first thing on Friday morning. It sat there all day without any comment from them. Unfortunately, I think Harley’s “…it was my idea…” first shot doomed any kind of rapprochement almost immediately.
Because I’m a generous, big-hearted kinda guy, here’s my offer to all concerned. I’ll run a full-page story in the next magazine about the whole idea – strategy, concept development, execution, results, the whole nine yards.
Deadline for material: Let’s say Thursday, October 7.
That gives you three weeks to clear the air, agree on who done what, write a happy magnanimous press release (maybe include a photo of Mitch, Warrick and Harley in a group hug), and acknowledge the real hero – the client for backing the idea (well done Eleanor). The ball’s in your court guys.
If that story doesn’t appear, then the rest of you will know one or both parties hasn’t been willing to kiss and make up, in which case it’s their problem, not ours.
Now, let’s move on.
Martin Trevaskis
Love your work Martin 🙂
According to the National Blog it’s been done before for Gun Control, by Jay Furby when he was at Saatchi and Saatchi 6 years ago.