Publications
Partners
In a year when there were few runaway winners, Cape Town’s KingJames became the first agency from the Mother City to win the AdReview Ad Agency of the Year award. This supreme accolade went to a business that achieved dominance at the 2010 Loeries and turned a rather mediocre performance of 2009 into an excellent 2010, with revenue growth of 27% and winning close to R100m in new business.
It’s that sort of all-round performance AdReview judges look for. But extra factors that underscore its winning performance were also good. Behind the new business figures some excellent new brands were added to its portfolio: McCann and Santam (both won in competitive pitches) and British Airways are accounts every agency would have given its eye-teeth for. The agency was also appointed to handle the pAan-African Johnnie Walker whisky business for the next phase of its global “Keep Walking” campaign.
Creatively, KingJames ended up second on the AdReview creative league table – but that was because TBWA Hunt Lascaris’s Trillion Dollar Billboard campaign was running its awards cycle to just before the Loeries. A year after its first flighting it’s no longer eligible for further awards from the same competitions. So big was its Trillion Dollar it put Hunt Lascaris on top of the creative heap for two successive years. But by the time the 2010 Loeries came along the campaign had shot its bolt.
KingJames had its own killer app: the Allan Gray “Legends” campaign, which helped it to a triumphant creative year. The group has become a leader in integrated advertising, which it delivers through a portfolio of seven agencies specialising in such disciplines as public relations, direct marketing, branding and media planning. The seamless nature of that delivery was a matter of comment among the judges.
We’ve made some changes to our way of thinking about the AdReview Awards. Like media people worldwide, we’ve been grappling for a couple of years with the question of how to reflect the transition to a non-silo platform. Increasingly, advertising is multi-disciplinary, yet awards still tend to be defined by silo categories: design agency, digital agency and so on. Most advertising uses a range of communication channels and touch points. The days of single-channel marketing are disappearing fast.
So we’ve renamed and refocused some of those categories. We’ve done away with the specialist agency category, which was an unfocused catch-all. We no longer will necessarily name a winner in each category.
Our system will now reward excellence, wherever it’s found, with an Outstanding Performance Award.
No award was made to an agency group.
ALL THE WINNERS
AGENCY AWARDS
Ad Agency of the Year: KingJames.
Gauteng agency: Draftfcb Johannesburg.
Finalists: Ireland/Davenport, McCann-Erickson.
Cape agency: KingJames.
Finalists: FoxP2, 34, Singh & Sons.
Outstanding performance awards: FoxP2, Volcano, Trigger/Isobar, VWV.
Media Agency of the Year: Carat.
Finalist: Page Three Media.
Small Media Agency of the Year: Vizeum.
Branding & Design Agency: Grid.
Finalists: Black Branding, Switch.
Newcomer of the Year: Mesh.
PR Consultancy of the Year: Atmosphere.
Finalists: Arcay, Magna Carta, Kezi.
ACHIEVEMENT AWARDS
Radio Campaign Award: Net#work BBDO, for Virgin Atlantic.
Magazine Campaign Award: KingJames, for Allan Gray.
Baobab Award: Joint winners – Draftfcb Johannesburg, TBWA Hunt Lascaris Durban.
The Big Idea: Draftfcb Johannesburg, for Keep the Flag Flying initiative.
INDIVIDUAL AWARDS
Marketer of the Year: Lars Reichelt.
Ad Achiever of the Year: Damon Stapleton, TBWA.
Lifetime Achievement: Andy Rice, John Farquhar.
It’s that sort of all-round performance AdReview judges look for. But extra factors that underscore its winning performance were also good. Behind the new business figures some excellent new brands were added to its portfolio: McCann and Santam (both won in competitive pitches) and British Airways are accounts every agency would have given its eye-teeth for. The agency was also appointed to handle the pAan-African Johnnie Walker whisky business for the next phase of its global “Keep Walking” campaign.
Creatively, KingJames ended up second on the AdReview creative league table – but that was because TBWA Hunt Lascaris’s Trillion Dollar Billboard campaign was running its awards cycle to just before the Loeries. A year after its first flighting it’s no longer eligible for further awards from the same competitions. So big was its Trillion Dollar it put Hunt Lascaris on top of the creative heap for two successive years. But by the time the 2010 Loeries came along the campaign had shot its bolt.
KingJames had its own killer app: the Allan Gray “Legends” campaign, which helped it to a triumphant creative year. The group has become a leader in integrated advertising, which it delivers through a portfolio of seven agencies specialising in such disciplines as public relations, direct marketing, branding and media planning. The seamless nature of that delivery was a matter of comment among the judges.
We’ve made some changes to our way of thinking about the AdReview Awards. Like media people worldwide, we’ve been grappling for a couple of years with the question of how to reflect the transition to a non-silo platform. Increasingly, advertising is multi-disciplinary, yet awards still tend to be defined by silo categories: design agency, digital agency and so on. Most advertising uses a range of communication channels and touch points. The days of single-channel marketing are disappearing fast.
So we’ve renamed and refocused some of those categories. We’ve done away with the specialist agency category, which was an unfocused catch-all. We no longer will necessarily name a winner in each category.
Our system will now reward excellence, wherever it’s found, with an Outstanding Performance Award.
No award was made to an agency group.
ALL THE WINNERS
AGENCY AWARDS
Ad Agency of the Year: KingJames.
Gauteng agency: Draftfcb Johannesburg.
Finalists: Ireland/Davenport, McCann-Erickson.
Cape agency: KingJames.
Finalists: FoxP2, 34, Singh & Sons.
Outstanding performance awards: FoxP2, Volcano, Trigger/Isobar, VWV.
Media Agency of the Year: Carat.
Finalist: Page Three Media.
Small Media Agency of the Year: Vizeum.
Branding & Design Agency: Grid.
Finalists: Black Branding, Switch.
Newcomer of the Year: Mesh.
PR Consultancy of the Year: Atmosphere.
Finalists: Arcay, Magna Carta, Kezi.
ACHIEVEMENT AWARDS
Radio Campaign Award: Net#work BBDO, for Virgin Atlantic.
Magazine Campaign Award: KingJames, for Allan Gray.
Baobab Award: Joint winners – Draftfcb Johannesburg, TBWA Hunt Lascaris Durban.
The Big Idea: Draftfcb Johannesburg, for Keep the Flag Flying initiative.
INDIVIDUAL AWARDS
Marketer of the Year: Lars Reichelt.
Ad Achiever of the Year: Damon Stapleton, TBWA.
Lifetime Achievement: Andy Rice, John Farquhar.
