DDB takes out coveted Agency of the Year title at AXIS Awards 2024; Motion Sickness wins Idea of the Year for Whanau Ora ‘Rep Your Suburb’; Good Oil named Production Company of the Year
The 44th AXIS Awards have just wrapped, held at Shed 10 in Auckland, where the industry gathered to recognise and acknowledge outstanding creative campaigns from the past 12 months. Following a two-month entry period and two rounds of judging by industry experts, the Commercial Communications Council awarded 102 Bronze metals, 76 Silver metals, 34 Gold metals and 3 Grands Prix.
CB NZ Agency of the Year DDB Group Aotearoa took out the coveted AXIS Agency of the Year title after scoring one Grand Prix, three Golds and one Bronze for Team Heroine ‘Correct the Internet’. The agency also scored a further five Silvers and four Bronze for campaigns including Volkswagen ‘The Greenprint’, L&P ‘Manu Togs’, KALÓ ‘I want real’, Vogel’s ‘Neighbours’, McDonald’s ‘Loved by all’, Speight’s ‘The Speech’ and Samsung ‘Think different.’
The Idea of the Year was presented to Motion Sickness (above) for Whānau Ora ‘Rep Your Suburb’, which also went on to win a Grand Prix and three Golds. The agency also collected 10 Silvers including five for Whānau Ora ‘Our Future is Māori’ and six Bronze.
The third Grand Prix was awarded to The Monkeys Aotearoa (above) for ASB & Youthline ‘Bagels by BENEE’, which also won a further five Golds and three Silvers. The Monkeys Aotearoa also scored three Bronze for No Ugly ‘No Ugly – Focus? Yes Please’, No Ugly ‘Say Yes Please’ and Kidscan ‘Too Hungry to Learn’.
It was an amazing night for Good Oil Films at the Axis Awards 2024 last night in Auckland. Good Oil were named Production Company of the Year, in addition to picking up Golds for work for Te Whatu Ora & Te Aka Whai Ora, for Cinematography and Direction, alongside a raft of Silvers and Bronze awards for this and other work in the past 12 months.
Zak Hawkins and Jack Close from Colenso BBDO won The Emerging Talent Award.
Lucy Lim and Rose Heron won the Student AXIS Challenge for Netsafe ‘The Protective Peel’.
Kate Humphries, programme director for creative advertising at Media Design School (MDS) won the Comms Council’s first ever Outstanding Achievement award for her 15+ years of work inspiring future generations to be creative superpowers.
The evening saw the unveiling of a new trophy design supporting the evening’s theme of tipping the balance for better. The trophy was designed by Pitchblack Partners.
Says Josh Moore, this year’s convenor of judges and principal partner at Pitchblack Partners: “The quality of the work was outstanding, and it was great to see winning work across multiple brands and agencies.”
The 2024 AXIS Awards were presented by the Comms Council and were made possible through sponsorship from Cartology, Meta, NZME, oOh!media, Stuff, TRB, and TVNZ.
View the complete list of winners here.
25 Comments
Benee should have been idea of the year.
Geoffery Matautia and his With Love From South series. The original version of Rep Your Suburb. Another idea stolen off pacific artists for commercial gain. 275 Forever.
Hmmm, yes With Love, From South was a beautiful idea. The only similarity is the area code merch, and i hate to break it to you but area code merch has been around for years and years. The idea behind the campaign is what makes it special.
#682HARD
Southside collaborated on the project with them
An economic crisis and all the golden work for social initiatives.
A great night. However, Motion Sickness should have won agency of the year and The Monkeys should have won idea of the year.
Was the catering company that provided those taco boxes
Did it occur to anyone else in adland that virtually every big gold winner, bar a deserving handful, had been done before… Or are we cool with that now?
3 grand prix?
Motion Sickness should have won agency of the year
Except they didn’t have the 3 best pieces of work, as judged by a room of their peers…
Rep your suburb: Bribe people with free shit to vote.
The whales With the original music that helps to reduce your anxiety. Another idea stolen off nature for commercial gain (although I hear there was no great commercial gain for Benee and it is why they are talking to new agencies including Shine and Thinkerbell.)
ASB is always talking to new agencies. They are the most promiscuous client ever.
Who is they?
Players gona play
Im okay with Axis being more frugal, while charging more and giving out less awards. I get it. Give me that non varietal specific wine, average service and beige food. Not angry – take my money. I’ve been pretending to eat that dinner delivered on a porcelain plate for over a decade. Wasn’t bothered by the change up. Told our clients (their first time) it was a concept …that was all before I sat down and discovered the at air conditioning had also been deprioritised. To be uncomfortably and visibly moist when faced with the annual reunion handshakes and an overwhelming amount of hugs and physical contact (we only tolerate once a year ant Axis) is unacceptable. Luckily my Cobb & Co paper placemat made for a great homemade fan and delightfully distracting arts and crafts project. While I couldn’t really hear or see the MC (?), follow the programme or know who won anything, it was okay – because mid ceremony (post arts and crafts) I was distracted by the tinfoil trays of grey (may contain meat) DIY dinner which was placed unevenly and slightly out of reach along the difficult to define – who is who shared tables. One of my clients got excited then because he got the concept I alluded to earlier – “it’s like what we eat when we’re on shoots, like in the tent. Clever because this is advertising” he said with great pride. I said “yes.” Before drinking someone else’s water because there was nothing else on the table. …At that point I missed the small bowl of nachos I fought a stranger (possibly someone’s client?) sitting next to me for 30 minutes earlier. What a night. Can’t wait for next years theme.
Rep your suburb – great piece of direct. Great art direction/design. But idea of the year.. nah. As far as the idea or creative leap goes.. it’s closer to one of those survey emails – “please fill out our 5 minute questionnaire and go in the draw to win one of five $250 Prezzie Cards” we’ve all received.
Win Award
Bagels: 1 GP, 6 golds, 3 silver vs Rep Your Suburb: 1 GP, 5 golds 🤔🤔🤔🤔
Bagels, Rep Your Suburb, Correct The Internet are all pretty average and uncreative by any other year’s standards.
Judging an idea by the amount of categories it could enter is a bit naive. Bagels was able to enter into some niche music categories and film craft categories for example but Rep Your Suburb couldn’t.
After Axis I went the 2024 New Zealand Plumbing Awards. The winners were a lot more interesting and creative than this sad bunch.
• It was extremely sweaty in there. This drove people from their seats to get air on the outer edges.
• So too did the fact that half the crowd was forced to face the wrong way and had to crane their necks to try and get a glimpse of the event. (There’s a reason round tables are seen at every event in the world)
• The gaps between tables were so tight you had to crab walk past about 20 seats to squeeze into yours.
• Once seated, it was also too tight to turn around to see the host or the screens.
• The speaker system was set up for the middle tables or those close to the stage. On the outer tables you could hardly hear a thing. Some singing from the host every now and then, but that was about it.
• The catering was like a budget student flat share dinner.
• There was no table service (because of the sardine like arrangement) which drove people the bar.
• This bar was in the same room which meant people gathered and talked, which meant it was louder than usual, which meant Kate got angry at everyone.
It was not a good show to attend.
They changed the rules this year to not make it a category fest.
Some agencies didn’t get the memo and wasted heaps of cash entering everything everywhere.
Who will remember how many bronze Axis people won in the years to come?
The best work won, although in the silvers there is work that will win gold overseas.
The best agencies from this year won.
Onto next year.