Colenso BBDO scores one of five Black Pencils at D&AD 2015 + two Yellow; Clemenger BBDO wins two Yellow Pencils; Ogilvy wins one Yellow Pencil
At the 53rd D&AD Professional Awards Ceremony, which took place tonight (21st May), Colenso BBDO has picked one of only five prestigious Black Pencils for MARS Pedigree ‘K9FM’ as well as two Yellow Pencils. In total NZ scored one Black Pencil, five Yellow Pencils, eight Graphite Pencils and nine Wood.
Colenso BBDO also scored three Graphite Pencils for MARS Pedigree ‘Talkies’, Fonterra ‘Back to Nature’ and NZ Breast Cancer Foundation ‘Breast Cream’ and two Wood Pencils for BNZ ‘$HRED’ and one for MARS Pedigree ‘Talkies’. Clemenger BBDO, Wellington picked up six Pencils for client NZTA with ‘Mistakes’ scoring two Yellow Pencils, two Graphite Pencils and one Wood Pencil and ‘Tinnyvision’ winning a Wood Pencil.
Ogilvy NZ scored one Yellow Pencil and one Graphite Pencil for Royal Forest & Bird Protection Society of NZ ‘Make a Difference’. Airbnb and Alt Group picked up one Graphite Pencil each. DDB New Zealand was awarded three Wood Pencils; Whybin\TBWA\DAN NZ scored two Wood and FCB NZ got one.
Only five Black Pencils were awarded – the ultimate creative accolade.
Not only is this Black Pencil a first for New Zealand, it is also the first time any brand in the Mars portfolio has won this accolade in the 53 year history of the awards – the first Black Pencil that has been awarded in the Radio category in 32 years.
Says Nick Worthington, creative chairman, Colenso BBDO: “D&AD is one of the toughest and most respected creative institutions in the world, where product design, industrial design, graphic design and advertising all rub shoulders. To be acknowledged as amongst the best creative work in the world across four clients is amazing, and obviously it’s beyond special to win a Black Pencil for our brilliant Mars clients. It’s a great acknowledgement that the kiwi creative spirit is alive and well.”
UK branding work took centre stage with Black Pencils awarded for 4creative’s ‘Film4 Idents’, 15 stunning digital reinventions of the film strip, and Made Thought’s immaculate new visual identity, website and brand for G. F. Smith.
For the second year running, the Black Pencil jury also handed out honours to work in the White Pencil category. This year Leo Burnett Toronto, London, Chicago and Holler were recognised for their ‘#LikeAGirl’, the celebrated campaign, which sought to change negative perceptions of the phrase ‘Like a girl’.
Black Pencil awarded work:
• ‘#LikeAGirl’ by Leo Burnett Toronto, London, Chicago, and Holler (Creativity for Good – White Pencil) – Canada, UK, US
• ‘Film4 Idents’ by 4creative (Channel Branding & Identity) – UK
• ‘G . F Smith’ by Made Thought (Branding Schemes/Medium Organisation) – UK
• ‘Inglorious Fruits & Vegetables’ by Marcel Worldwide (Direct Integrated Campaigns) – France
• ‘K9FM’ by Colenso BBDO (Radio Advertising Campaigns) – New Zealand
Following a greater than 50% increase in White Pencil category entries, a record four White Pencils were awarded by the White Pencil jury – the highest in the awards’ history, doubling last year’s figure of two and signalling a bumper year for creativity for social good.
White Pencils
• ‘LEGO: Everything is NOT awesome’ by Don’t Panic London (Advertising & Marketing Communications – Not for Profit) – UK
• ‘This Is Wholesome’ by Droga5 (Advertising & Marketing Communications – Brand) – US
• ‘Nazis Against Nazis’ – Germany’s Most Involuntary Charity Walk by GGH Lowe and Grabarz & Partner (Advertising & Marketing Communications – Not for Profit) – Germany
• ‘Human Traffic Sign’ by Lowe China (Advertising & Marketing Communications – Brand) – China
Overall D&AD has grown in 2015. The addition of two new Pencils (Wood and Graphite replacing ‘In-Book’ and ‘Nomination’ respectively) has facilitated a record number of entries into this year’s annual, with 847 projects from 44 countries achieving D&AD’s legendary standards.
While the pursuit of excellence has been well awarded by the 2015 jurors (207 entries received Graphite Pencils and a further 587 entries received Wood Pencils) two of D&AD’s highest accolades, the Yellow and Black Pencils (the latter reserved only for creative perfection), have been more difficult than ever to win this year, with just 44 Yellow and 5 Black Pencil winners.
‘#LikeAGirl’ by Leo Burnett Toronto, London, Chicago, and Holler was the campaign that won the most pencils overall, with two Yellow Pencils, three Graphite Pencils and two Wood Pencils in addition to their Black Pencil.
Says Tim Lindsay, chief executive of D&AD: “The introduction of our new Pencil levels – Wood and Graphite – has clearly made an impression. Our judges were happier to award brilliant work, and we’re going to have our thickest ever Annual as a result. Inversely, they now regard Yellow as an even tougher accolade. Personally I’m delighted that White Pencil work is now a central pillar of the awards.”
On the night, R/GA was crowned Most Awarded Advertising Agency, with two Yellow Pencils and a string of Graphite and Wood Pencils for its work with clients including Beats By Dre, Google, Hammerhead Navigation and Equinox.
Design Bridge claimed Most Awarded Design Agency, Procter & Gamble was recognised as Most Awarded Client, and Somesuch & Co. walked away with Most Awarded Production Agency, winning a Yellow Pencil for ‘The Otherside’ for Honda, one of the year’s most talked about campaigns.
The United Kingdom topped the tables again with 229 Pencils in total, including seven Yellow Pencils and two Black Pencils. The US followed up in second place bagging one Black Pencil and equalling the UK’s seven Yellows.
Across the world, Japan led in Asia once again with 47 pencils including 5 Yellows, while Germany weighed in with 44 Pencils and France with 37 Pencils to mark a great year for Europe.
Meanwhile Australia celebrated another strong year with 39 Pencils, just beating its 2014 figure of 37.
Brazil, in fourth place overall and topping Latin America, bagged 44 Pencils including three Yellow Pencils. Perhaps the most exciting development was China’s 21 Pencils – up 300 percent from just five awards in 2014.
Margaret Calvert, the celebrated co-designer of Britain’s iconic motorway signs and RCA tutor, was honoured with the President’s Award.
Selected by the incumbent D&AD president, Mark Bonner, Calvert moved from South Africa to Britain in 1950 to study at the Chelsea College of Art. In 1957 she was hired by Jock Kinner to redesign the road sign system. She came up with simple, easy-to-understand pictograms, including the signs for ‘men at work’ (a man digging), which revolutionised public signage in the UK.
Calvert taught multiple generations of designers at London’s Royal College of Art. Alumni who studied under her include founders of some of Britain’s best-known design studios – Graphic Thought Facility, Why Not Associates, GBH, Jonathan Barnbrook and Daniel Eatock.
Says Bonner: “Margaret perfectly embodies all that is important to D&AD; combining excellence with education to inspire young creatives across the disciplines. I know, because she taught me. Thank god I listened. She has inspired a who’s who of young, fortunate, and now successful creatives from all over the world during her 35-year association with The Royal College of Art. Her legacy is some of our industry’s greatest talents.”
Winners for two new awards, separate to the Professional Awards, were also announced. The
Next Photographer Award, created in partnership with Getty Images to find the best new photographers and promote them back to the creative industry, was won by Brooklyn-based photographer Jeff Brown.
Says Sarah Thompson, head of art production at Fallon and the Next Photographer Award jury foreman: “Jeff is a worthy winner of D&AD’s first Next Photographer Award. Amongst some stiff competition his work stood out from the beginning of our judging – and withstood many hours of discussion to the end of the day. Big congratulations to Jeff for being D&AD Next Photographer 2015.”
The Next Director Award, created in partnership with YouTube and MOFILM to unearth the best new directorial talent, was given to Vania Heymann for his music video Mayokero.
Says Sean Thompson from the Next Director Award jury: “‘He isn’t afraid of doing the ridiculous. I love that. It’s so nice to see a simple fresh idea brought to life in film. The director does well to not add anything unnecessary and executes with excellence in this beautiful music video.”
Most Awarded:
Advertising Agency:
1. R/GA
2. AMV BBDO
3. Leo Burnett London
Design Agency
1. Design Bridge
2. Atlas
3. Plug-in Graphic
Production Company
1. Somesuch & Co.
2. Blink Productions
3. Prettybird
Client
1. Procter & Gamble
2. DIAGEO
3. Honda
VIEW THE FULL LIST OF WINNERS – D&AD 2015 – Full list of Pencil Winners.xlsx
15 Comments
Question – is that the Black pencil won by NZ?
Wow, awesome work k9 team.
87.7FM (K9FM) is actually a drum and base station
http://tunein.com/radio/Boosh-FM-877-s130635/
well done. jealous.
Softest Black Pencil ever?
Hurrah! Well done you two.
Congrats guys. A good day for kiwi creativity. Damn you!
Sorry but someone’s gotta say it… Black Pencil! Really?!!! Great idea no doubt. Very nicely written and executed. A Silver at Cannes Lions. Gold in other shows. Possibly a well deserved Yellow Pencil at D&AD. But Black..?
I have to agree. This is a Gold idea. But not Black. They’re meant to be for the absolute best of the best and bloody rare. This is a campaign that no-one in NZ ever even heard of. Where’s the scale, the impact, the daring and the ‘oh my god how did they do that?’.
I heard the idea was conceived by Clemenger Mebourne and ‘gifted’ to Colenso because they had a favourable Pedigree client. BBDO in action playing the awards game…
Let the jealousy begin. The black pencil jury deemed it black pencil worthy. Can’t you just be happy that nz won one?
I find it funny that the anonymous trolls, that won’t even put their names to their comments, think they know better than a jury made up of some of the brightest, most talented and most experienced names in advertising.
Keep on hating guys. It’s just sad really.
It’s really sad to see other industry folk questioning great work.
If you don’t think it’s the best work you’ve seen, that’s fine because everyone is entitled to an opinion, but keep that to yourself.
Put yourself in the shoes of the creative team – if that was you and you won the Black Pencil, you’d be stoked, but then you’d also question your work seeing other people bring you down.
You hardly ever see negativity on global websites, only in NZ. A bit disgraceful if you ask me.
D&AD have the highest standards in the world, rewarding only true unequivocal creative excellence. Unquestionable work wins – great idea, beautiful execution, undoubted impact. Pencils (especially black) are so hard to achieve, they’re almost mythical in their appeal.
So it’s a great shame to watch D&AD compromise their standards and play the money game like every other award show. The slightly eccentric ‘in-book’ system that has challenged agencies for years has been replaced with far more profitable tiers (wood pencil = bronze, graphite pencil = silver, yellow pencil = gold, black pencil = grand prix), and no doubt more extra categories like ‘White Pencil for Good’ will be developed and added. More winners/pencils encourage more entries, and each entry delivers more revenue to D&AD.
It’s no surprise then that this year more pencils were given out than ever before. I guess one could try and argue that we’ve just had an extraordinary year of incredible creative ideas that warranted such generosity from D&AD. New Zealand did win more D&AD pencils this year than ever before. But was it really our most creative year ever as an industry? Or you could feel, like I do, that the standards just slipped a bit, to welcome more people into the awards machine.
The rarest of accolades just became more achievable. A disappointment in my view, and a discredit to all those who have come before.
On the upside D&AD is a non-profit, so the extra revenue will be invested back into the British creative community. On the downside, who now sets the standard?
*sigh* So, it’s getting easier to win at D&AD because the total number of awards given out has gone up? ‘Lies, dam lies and statistics’ springs to mind.
You do of course decide to ignore the actual numbers that matter.
Yellow Pencils awarded in 2013 – 51.
Yellow Pencils awarded in 2014 – 52.
Yellow Pencils awarded in 2015 – 44
Black Pencils awarded in 2013 – 5
Black Pencils awarded in 2014 – 7.
Black Pencils awarded in 2015 – 5.
Total awards went up, yes. But that volume all came from the ‘Wood’ (i.e., the ‘in book’). It actually got harder this year to win a Yellow or a Black than in recent years. But of course, the facts don’t match up to your rant so feel free to just ignore them.