Clemenger BBDO takes out Grand Axis for NZTA ‘Mistakes’; DDB named Creative Agency of the Year with eight gold + three Grand Prix Awards
At a sell-out event at Sky City Convention Centre in Auckland last night an 800 strong crowd came together at the annual Axis Awards to celebrate the industry’s best creative work of the past year.
The highly coveted Grand Axis was awarded to Clemenger BBDO for its NZTA film ‘Mistakes‘. The trophy will sit alongside the Grand Prix the film was awarded in Screen Content and Craft and the other two Gold Axis awards Clemenger BBDO received on the night. Method Films and Finch also benefiting from this piece of work with their Golds in the Craft category for Editing and Direction.
DDB picked up eight golds and three Grand Prix Awards, resulting in DDB Group being named Creative Agency of the Year (calculated on points awarded for finalists and/or metal won on the night). Pictured left at Axis last night: DDB chief creative officer Damon Stapleton (left) and ECD Shane Bradnick (far left).
The three Grand Prix wins for DDB were in the Integrated, Digital and Interactive and Out-of-Home campaign categories.
DDB’s most decorated idea was the digitally-led ‘Bring Down the King‘ campaign for SKY TV, collecting gongs across 12 categories. Following closely was the ‘Live Dive‘ campaign for Steinlager Pure which won the Grand Prix for Best Integrated Campaign, plus Lion was named Creative Business of the Year.
Overall DDB was awarded 3 Grand Prix, 8 golds, 9 silvers and 14 bronze across 13 different campaigns for clients; SKY TV, Steinlager Pure, Speight’s, YWCA and Westpac.
Other big winners included Saatchi & Saatchi with five Gold Awards with the Tui ‘Catch a million‘ campaign winning Gold in PR and activation, Direct and Out of Home and also picking up the coveted Integrated Axis.
Colenso BBDO took out 2 Golds for Breast Cream and for K9FM Radio while Special won Gold for Smirnoff with their Instagram Your Fridge campaign in Direct.
Creative business of the Year went to Lion and The Sweet Shop (left) celebrated four consecutive years in being named Production Company of the Year.
Jeremy Taine (right) was honoured with a Lifetime Achievement Award for his incredible career and was a highlight of the evening with a standing ovation.
The Executive Judging Panel awarded the Emerging Talent Axis to Liz Richards and Nick Dellabarca from DDB New Zealand who both demonstrated outstanding talent
TVNZ’s Axis Student Challenge Award went to Matt Halliday and Reammon Thomas-Dudding from AUT .
Jeremy Craigen from DDB London, Matty Burton from Special Sydney and Mark Harricks from VCCP Sydney flew into Auckland earlier in the week, and joined the five local Jury Presidents on the Executive Judging Panel. Their role was to award the final metal which included a total of 27 gold category Axis Awards. They enjoyed the work and noted that there was a high standard of very good work which should represent New Zealand well on the world stage.
“Axis has always been the pivotal moment in the New Zealand creative calendar because it is a celebration of our best creative work; the work our industry is most proud of because it has broken the rules, permeates popular culture and influences behavioural change, and the winners this year are all great examples of those attributes,” said Paul Head, CEO of CAANZ.
15 Comments
Nice work Nick and Liz. Very proud of you.
Congrats to Clems and saatchi’s great work, but it was pretty much the ddb show.
To all the winners congratulations. New Zealand’s creativity is in very good shape. To DDB awesome.
Amazing work Clems – bunch of legends! Love the photo D you lad x
Where do I get the glasses from to be able to work at DDB and how many weeks stubble too?
Everyone loves a big horizontal D!
Great result for NZ advertising. Congrats the Tui team, congrats to Clems for Mistakes (a superb film), congrats to DDB for dominating the night. Mistakes is definitely a deserving Film Grand Prix, not sure it should have been the Grand Axis though. DDB’s bring down the king won far more on the night, including 2 Grand Prix, and is a far more complex and modern style campaign.
Seems odd that Colenso won CB’s AOTY, given Clems Grand Axis and DDB totally dominating the show. Seems the moaners had a point…
Where were Colenso on the night? CB’s agency of the year?!
To desperate DDBers @C’mon and @Unjust: Yes, but almost all for two campaigns, Bring Down the King and Live Dive. Hardly enough for CB to do a four page story on!
@DesperateDDB there have been plenty of years where one campaign, or two, have dominated an agency’s performance and it’s got them named the best overall.
That aside, I think CB are disconnected from the NZ market and have got this one wrong. I don’t work for DDB, but I work in the industry and value awards – by my count the the dbb’ers won at Axis for Steinlager ABs, Westpac, Steinlager Dive, SKY game of thrones, Speight’s, SKY birds TV, SKY casting tapes TV and the Compost thing. Plus they won even more awards across a wider range of clients at Spikes. Colenso have, from the last year, been awarded for K9 radio and Breast Cream.
As someone said last month, the only exciting work seems to come from FCB and Colenso these days. The work I see from DDB is very advertising, bar Bring down the King – sorry DDB.
Let’s wait to see what work from 2014 wins at Cannes. I’ll bet Colenso beats DDB this year.
DDB are hiring, BBDO are firing.
BBDO are really firing, on all four cylinders! 9 out of 10 of their most creatively awarded campaigns went on to win Effies last year, and named #3 agency in the world by WARC for 2014.
@Let’sSeeWhatWinsAtCannes
Firstly what’s wrong with advertising ideas? It is the foundation and core of our industry, and I for one aren’t embarrassed by it. In fact the rhetoric from agencies trying to get beyond advertising into product design etc is a little hollow don’t you think? How many have actually done so successfully, so much so that they can shun old school advertising and move on? I like ideas, advertising ones, product ones, packaging ones, content ones – they all hold potential and none is more sexy than the other in my view.
Secondly, if you accept ddb’s Bring down the King as being non-advertising, what about the deep dive event that half the country watched? Or the WeCompost weekend idea? Or the Westpac Christmas tree activation?
Colenso may well beat DDB at Cannes, but I think both those agencies respect great ideas, advertising and beyond.