303Lowe takes out Campaign Brief WA Agency of the Year award at sold-out Oasis Ball in Perth

What a difference a year makes. This time last year Campaign Brief WA was reflecting on what an uncharacteristically quiet 2010 it had been for 303.

Twelve months later the agency has bounced back to the top with creative dominance, new and recaptured business and an international partnership with Lowe.

All these things contributed to 303Lowe taking out the biggest prize of the night – Agency of the Year – at the Campaign Brief WA Awards presented at the Oasis Ball at the Burswood Casino in Perth on Friday night.

770 people attended the Ball to see 303Lowe take out Agency of the Year for the 7th time since Campaign Brief introduced the award in 1987. The last time the agency won this award was in 2005 and they now join Marketforce with seven wins to their name.

The Office of Road Safety became the first three-time winner of Campaign Brief’s Advertiser of the Year award.

The ORS’s ‘Enjoy The Ride’ was the outstanding campaign of 2011. That, along with other work in various media, demonstrated the ORS maintains a commitment to innovative, bold communications strategies.

ORS Communications Director Roger Farley accepted the award from Linda Wayman (pictured above), general manager of award sponsor 92.9, which also provides a $5,000 airtime package as part of the award.

Runner-up was the RAC, with Curtin University also a finalist.

After another outstanding year as the general manager of Southern Cross Austereo WA in 2011, Linda Wayman was named Campaign Brief’s Ad Person of the Year.

Wayman guided SCA’s two stations – Mix 94.5 and 92.9 – to continued dominance of Perth’s radio market, and shepherded the local operation seamlessly through the merger of Southern Cross and Austereo mid-year.

Characteristically, in accepting the award Wayman shared all the credit with and paid tribute to her team at SCA. However, it speaks volumes that three of her team from different sectors of the business independently nominated her, citing Wayman’s inspirational leadership as a key factor in the stations’ continued success.

Wayman (pictured above to CB co-publisher Kim Shaw) beat a strong field for the award, which also included 303Lowe’s Richard Berney, Bart Hodgen and Alan Taylor, The Brand Agency’s Garry Horner and Ken James, OMD WA’s Adam Marshall, Mitchell & Partners WA’s Alan Matthews and The Communications Council’s Danielle Norrish.