Australia wins Gold in Press

19 Jun 2008

CANNES: JWT Sydney won a Gold Lion in the Press competition, with Silver going to M&C Saatchi Sydney, Bronze to DDB Sydney and JWT snaring another another Lion, this time a Bronze. New Zealand walked away with one Gold and one Silver.

JWT's Gold-winning Olympus Binoculars campaign ("Echidna", "Koala" and "Cockatoo" executions) was one of three close contenders for the Grand Prix, but missed out to DDB Johannesburg, which impressed the judges with a humorous and well-produced Energizer print campaign.

M&C Saatchi Sydney won for Herringbone ("Bulgarians", "Measurements", "Make Love to You") and DDB's Bronze was for Hasbro / Tonka Toys, "Open Cut Sandpit".

Clemenger BBDO Wellington won Gold for Land Transport NZ / Sleep Before Driving ("Treek", "Vreek", "Bridge") and Saatchi & Saatchi Auckland won Silver for Energy Drink ("Kindergarten", "Prison", "Old Folks").

The Grand Prix-winning Energizer campaign showed children misbehaving because the batteries in their toys ran out. Scenarios included a young boy exposing himself to a young girl, girls spitting at passersby from a balcony and a boy preparing to paint the family dog red. 

"To anyone who has kids or can remember being one, this campaign speaks to an absolute universal truth to all of us," said Jury President Craig Davies, worldwide chief creative officer of JWT.

Australia's judge on the Press jury, Publicis Mojo regional CD Darren Spiller said Energizer had that extra something over Olympus. "Olympus is a fantastic campaign, but the Grand Prix, we thought, has probably more of a human insight and touched us a bit more - that's what we look at."

In total, the Print judges awarded one Grand Prix, nine Gold, 29 Silver and 54 Broze Lions. Davies praised entries for using the press medium "with imagination", including a campaign that revolved around the page numbers of a publication. "People are applying creativity not just to a format on a page, they are also using the medium in new ways."

Some categories, however, were singled out out by Davies for their lack of award-winning work, including banking/finance & investment, fast food & restaurants, advertising & media and business-to-business. Cars and Entertainment & Leisure were two of

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