AUT’s Ambrose O’Meagher wins inaugural TRB Student Outstanding Radio Creative Awards

A third year advertising student from AUT has taken out the top prize at the inaugural TRB Student Outstanding Radio Creative Awards (ORCA).

‘”Reversing Camera'” by Ambrose O’Meagher was highly commended by the judges who commented that they could imagine this 15- second radio commercial being played on-air. The advert was for the Volkswagen Polo and focused on the reversing camera feature of the vehicle. A clever use of play-on-words made this commercial simple, yet creative, by having children voicing the words “Marco” and “Polo” with a voice-over stating that the reversing camera in the Volkswagen Polo allows you to know where things are, even if you can’t see them.

Says Paul White, programme leader of advertising creativity, AUT: “The student ORCA award has given everyone a real enthusiasm for radio. One of the really good lessons was that idea and execution have to be perfect. Insight, idea, craft and then collaboration with production all came together. The grounding in sound, moving image and digital that all AUT communications students get at the very beginning, obviously paid off for Ambrose (winner) and Sophie (finalist) too. The judges’ comment that they really loved the winner and thought the idea was very simple, suits the client well and they can imagine this ad being played on the radio was great accolade. TRB and judges Rory, Zac, Matt, Freddie, Beth and Thomas, thank you for your time and deliberations.”

The open brief for the competition really allowed students to be innovative and choose a brand and product or service that they would like to create a radio advertisement for.

General manager of The Radio Bureau, Peter Richardson, said it was great to see advertising students exploring the creative opportunities that radio offers brands.

Says Richardson: “The students really thought about the medium and how they could use it creatively for the brand they had chosen.”

Media Design School students, Zach Hall and Ryan Read, were runners-up for their 60- second commercial, ‘”Sample Dying'” for AMI. The aim of this advertisement was to get young people thinking about life insurance by making it more relatable. They did this by focusing the creative on a situation where you’re ‘”dying on the inside'”. In this commercial, a young woman ends up accidentally sending a text venting about someone, to the person she’s actually venting about.

Says Kate Humphries, course leader at Media Design School: “A big thank you to The Radio Bureau for quickly taking us up on the idea of the Student ORCAs, and to the judges for wading their way through 30 odd scripts to select the finalists. It was great to get 5 out of the 7 finalist places, and as much as it was a bit hairy trying to then get a studio and voices to record those 5 finalists on a zero budget – it proved to be a great learning experience for the students. A high five to Envy Studios for giving us a special ‘student price’ for their recording studio, and to Fiona Edgar (represented by Kathryn Rawlings) and Matt Dwyer (represented by Word of Mouth) for donating their patience, their time, and their nimble voices all for price of a supermarket wine or two.”

All the finalists were invited to the TRB seminar for creatives featuring Ralph van Dijk (founding creative director – Eardrum) earlier this week, where they were presented with their awards.

The winner took away a $500 cash prize and the runner-up received $250.

Listen to the audio from all the finalists here: http://www.trb.co.nz/news/trb-student-orca-winner-runner-up-and-finalists.