SIX locally created advertising campaigns have been selected as finalists for the prestigious Australasian Writers and Art Directors Association (AWARDS) awards for creative excellence.
SIX locally created advertising campaigns have been selected as finalists for the prestigious Australasian Writers and Art Directors Association (AWARDS) awards for creative excellence.
The Brand Agency is responsible for five of those campaigns, while Gatecrasher Advertising won a finalist berth for its Diabetes Australia (WA) radio commercial.
The AWARDS are presented for creativity, not campaign results, and The Brand Agency associate creative director Craig Buchanan said the recent announcement was a coup for the agency.
“It’s based on pure creativity and they are the awards that are recognised as important for agencies to win,’ he said.
“We are results focused but it is good to be recognised for creative work.
“No-one has had five campaigns get to a finalist stage. It might be one campaign that wins a few awards. We have five different campaigns for four clients and that’s basically unheard of.”
An RAC direct mail campaign, a Channel 9 National IQ Test ad, two Bunnings radio commercials and the Department of Community Development TV ad Shaken Baby Syndrome were the campaigns selected as finalists in the AWARDS awards.
Gatecrasher Advertising’s Diabetes Australia radio campaign titled Impotence is a finalist in community service radio category.
According to Gatecrasher Advertising strategic planner Paul Yole, the regional campaign may be run in the metropolitan area provided funding and research criteria are met.
“We did a pilot test in the country areas of WA. The campaign was a mix of TV, press and radio,” Mr Yole said.
“The radio component was aired in Bunbury at the beginning of June. It was a 45-second ad that uses sounds of groaning delight that turns to groans of pain and then a voice comes on and says ‘for some people diabetes is too serious to ignore’.
“We decided fairly early on that we would target the consequences of diabetes 2, and we did research on those consequences.
“Research on the campaign has just been completed and if it is positive it will more than likely be run in the metro area. But Diabetes Australia has to get funding for that also.”
The Brand Agency is also vying for a win in the community award category for its pro-bono work for the Department of Community Development’s Shaken Baby Syndrome campaign.
It is a finalist for its television commercial.
“We used an egg in the middle of a doll’s head and shook the doll. It is an analogy of how delicate the baby’s brain is and [how] when you shake a baby it can be disastrous,” Mr Buchanan said.
“A lot of parents get frustrated and rather than hitting the child they will shake it, and our objective was to get parents to think twice.”
Mr Buchanan said the agency’s RAC direct mail campaign was an innovative use of the medium.
“That was a direct mail piece that got put under the doors of houses in suburbs where crime was high. It was an innovative use of the medium,” he said.
“The ad was for RAC security services and had a man on the card with the words: ‘It is this easy for him to get into your home’.”
The winners of the AWARD awards will be announced in Sydney in November.
