Jack Watts Currie takes out the top honours at the 2010 Outdoor Awards for Red Cross
Sydney based advertising agency Jack Watts Currie has taken out top honors at the 2010 Outdoor Awards for Australian Red Cross’ ‘For the love of humanity’.
The campaign used a billboard that appeared to be from a frustrated wife, fed up with her husband leaving the toilet seat up. During the ensuing media coverage it was leaked that the billboard was a stunt a raise awareness of a Facebook based fundraising campaign for 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 tonight, 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
whom received gold pigeon trophies for various campaigns including The Brand Agency Perth, DDB Sydney and two teams from US Sydney.
Of the seven golds, two were awarded to JWC’s Red Cross campaign, and two to The Brand Agency in Perth for the Drug and Alcohol Office of Western Australia – ‘Big Brother at the Northbridge Piazza’. The campaign used movement tracking technology and a giant screen in the hub of Perth’s nightlife district to warn drug users that police can test and catch them if they drive while under the influence of drugs. As revellers walked past, their image was projected onto the screen and a speech bubble was added over their head implying what they may have eaten/drunk/ingested that night.
US Sydney picked up two gold, one for Nike’s ‘Liveboard’, featuring live headlines created from football action happening on the field at the Socceroos’ last home match before heading to the World Cup and the other for EA Games’ ‘Toy Soldiers’, launching the epic war game ‘Battlefield’ Bad Company 2, with toy soldiers downing their guns and pick up game controllers to wage a different type of battle. It also won silver for Hachette’s ‘Twilight Dots’.
The remaining gold went to DDB Sydney for McDonald’s ‘Playland’, which involved creating an adult sized Playland to make adult passersby feel like kids again. This campaign also won a silver award. Three silvers went to The Three Monkeys for The Cancer Council’s ‘Sun Sound’. Other winning agencies on the night were JayGrey, George Patterson Y&R, Colman Rasic and Ward6.
The Outdoor Media Association’s chief executive Charmaine Moldrich praised the standard of this year’s entries. “We have seen work of a very high caliber, which showcases just how creative a medium Out-of-Home can be,” Moldrich said. “What’s more, in only our second year of running the Awards we are delighted to have received over 200 entries from more than 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
Sorry to be a dick, but that is an astonishingly crap piece of outdoor.
Big Brother is the stand out
Damn, if that’s the standard and there were only 200 entries I should’ve entered.
Missed opportunity. But how appealing is a pigeon??
11:48 – I think that was the point.
Firstly congrats to JWC.
Secondly this is not a dig at JWC.
Thirdly it’s a massive dig at the judges.
That work is rubbish. Has nothing to do with the service. Doesn’t tell the punter to do or feel anything. It’s all about making noise.
I’d feel super pissed if I were the creative team on the McDonalds playground.
Even the Nike work is better.
The interactive piece should have won…well done Perth!
Hey 9.40am. You should’ve entered but i didn’t see an eDM category.
I disagree. Nobody noticed or talked about McDonalds or Nike outside of the industry.
And from what Kneebone said, the decision was unanimous.
Job well done.
10:50. Good advertising is about more than just getting people to go “mmm, wonder what that’s for?”
After the reveal the response was “uh, that’s crap”
10.34 I’ve done more outdoor campaigns than you this year.
Never been near an edm, obviously you have.
We all happy at US. No complaints here. Good times.
Not sure if there are quite enough exclamation marks on the Red Cross piece.
Surely a few more would have added some extra impact?
EA games is great.
But isn’t it just a big print ad?
I was really upset when I first saw this execution…
I had left home, stuck in crappy traffic with my leaky travel mug when I saw this billboard. It looked so similar to my 40th birthday invite the missus had done in Microsoft Publisher.
So I turned around, went back to the house and ran in to check the toilet seat was down, only to find out that there was a big turd, rolled in glitter and floating in the bowl.
We’re now divorced.
Agree the mcdondalds playground for adults was robbed.
http://sellsellblog.blogspot.com/2010/02/this-is-truth-about-advertising-blog.html
The usual cynical depressing response from many tools here.
Its becoming a sad generic process now.
The award is well deserved and its also a great idea.
It won’t win the sexiest outdoor ad award that’s for sure. But for such an ugly duckling it did a hell of a lot, to get a hell of a lot of people talking about it. Which is a hell of a lot considering it’s only one billboard.
Well done B & S and JWC.
Rich.
I remember the ad, but don’t have a friggin clue what the brand or product is. Goes against every rule I’ve ever learned about advertising, and not in a good way.
Twenty words (if you include .com) on a billboard and it wins an award?
Are you serious? What happened to the first rule of Outdoor advertising – Seven words or less?
Are you seriously telling me the average punter driving by at 70kph would:
A, bother to read this.
B, understand it.
C, remember the website.
D, get home, log on to the website.
E, Sigh, with impressed delight that it’s a website for the Red Cross
F, donate.
And one more thing, ads about the toilet seat being up or down are in the same basket as the ‘Does my bum look big in this’ ads – a basket that should be thrown in the bin.
C’mon people, lift your game! This is rubbish adverting. Enough. Enough. Enough.
I’m lovin it.
Fucking brilliant, different and original… breaks all the usual conventions of outdoor for sure.
Well done on all fronts.
Couldn’t have happened to two nicer guys.
Well done, great ad, great blokes.
Diz.
I think it’s more telling of all the entries this year. And this entry is the worst of a bad bunch. I’m ringing matt Keon and Sarah barclay to find out what the Actually happened. 2.51 was spot on. And the Red Cross do deserve much much better than a couple of clever dicks saying “wow it doesn’t even look like an ad aren’t we geniuses”. Get your hand of it guys there’s no fucking way people would remember let alone want to go to that website. Sad. Very sad. I think you guys should redeem yourself by giving The winnings of those 10,000 scratchies to the Red Cross.
7:23 & 2.51,
If you watch the case study the billboard wasn’t aimed at the people driving past at 70kph. It was aimed at generating massive traction via the radio, television and of course online media – who then pointed people to the campaign.
It’s an extremely brilliant example of how effective one tiny piece of outdoor can be if it’s done the right way, and it integrated perfectly into their overall campaign.
In my opinion it could have run in Tasmania and still would have worked.
THE AD FOR DRUG AND ALCOHOL IS VERY VERY SIMILAR TO THE COALITION AD FOR GUN CONTROL DONE BY SAATCHIS OVER SIX YEARS AGO….A VIDEO BILLBOARD THAT INTERACTS WITH THE PUBLIC IN IT.
GUESS THEY WERE AHEAD AT THAT TIME….AND NOW EVERYONE CATCHES UP.
BUT WELL DONE ANYWAY.