Marketforce’s Lennox, Green, Henson and Riley take out the Southern Cross Austereo Radio Writers Award for 2015 with City of Perth spot

Marketforce creative directors Pat Lennox and Ben Green and creative team Alida Henson and Megan Riley have won this year’s Southern Cross Austereo Radio Writers Award. The quartet won the $20,000 prize with a commercial for City of Perth, ‘Father’s Day – Spiderman’.

Listen to the winning spot.

It’s the second time in three years Henson and Riley have won the award, having been successful in 2013 with another City of Perth spot, ‘Taps‘.

SCA Sales Director Noel Quick made the announcement at the presentation luncheon at Fraser’s in Kings Park today. The Radio Writers Award is one of the highlights of the Perth creative calendar and this year was the 21st time it has been presented.

As part of the prize, City of Perth also wins $20,000 of value added airtime on Mix 94.5 and/or hit92.9.

Spiderman beat a strong field of finalists in the competition including another in the City of Perth Father’s Day campaign – ‘Hair Wash‘ – and ‘Hyena‘ from the Perth Zoo’s long-running Who Am I? campaign by The Brand Agency.

Marketforce had four finalists in total, as did The Brand Agency and Meerkats. Equilibrium and Trilogy had two each, while Bain Media, Cooch, J Walter Thompson and Malcolm Maclean Creative had one each. MacLean also wrote or co-wrote Equilibrium’s and Bain Media’s finalists.

The winning spot was produced by Brad Habib from Soundbyte, which was also Production Studio of the Year having produced ten of this year’s 20 finalists. They just edged Brainestorm, which produced nine of the finalists with Eardrum producing one.

This year’s award was judged by James Rickard, Creative Director, KWP! Advertising in Adelaide; Cam Blackley, Executive Creative Director, BMF Sydney; and Jim Ingram, Executive Creative Director, Cummins and Partners, Melbourne.

The SCA Radio Writers Award continues to be Australia’s richest creative cash prize. Since 1994, winners have been:

1994                Mike Edmonds

1995                No award*

1996                Mat Garbutt

1997                Steve Browning

1998                Steve Browning

1999                Ron Samuel

2000                Malcolm MacLean

2001                Tom Martin

2002                Patrick Lennox

2003                Mike Edmonds

2004                Adam Barker

2005                Steve Browning

2006                John Ilian

2007                Josh Edge

2008                Ryan Albuino & Andrew Chu

2009                Paul Coghlan

2010                Josh Edge & Rikki Burns

2011                Paul Coghlan

2012                Dav Tabeshfar

2013                Alida Henson & Megan Riley

2014                Mitch Mitchell

2015                Pat Lennox, Ben Green, Alida Henson & Megan Riley

*Subsumed into the national Golden Stylus Awards