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Cannes - The final tally of awards at the Cannes Lions Advertising Festival last week confirms TBWA Hunt Lascaris as SA's top agency there, breaking a long drought for the once-invincible agency.
Almost all its 7 300 points were provided by its "trillion-dollar campaign" for The Zimbabwean exile newspaper, which won a Grand Prix and five Gold Lions (plus a couple of lesser awards) by draping a billboard with a screen made of worthless Zim currency.
It was a graphic demonstration of the currency destruction brought about by Zim President Robert Mugabe's disastrous policies. The Zim currency is literally not worth the paper it is printed on.
The campaign won its best-of-show in the Outdoor category, and took other awards in Media, Integration, Design and Direct Marketing.
Based on a points system that awards 1 000 points for a Grand Prix, 600 for Gold, 450 for Silver, 300 for Bronze and 150 for short-list status, Ogilvy Johannesburg was placed second in the Cannes table, but its best award was a Silver.
Net#work BBDO, narrowly behind it in points, headed its trophies with a Grand Prix for a Virgin Atlantic Airways radio campaign, and probably deserves second spot.
For many years, Hunt Lascaris was South Africa's leading force in advertising creativity, but its last year at the top of the table was 2005. Since then it has slid down to last year's ranking of 11th. But its return to form was welcomed noisily by the South African contingent at Cannes, as well as by the more knowledgeable of the international crowd, who understood what a special moment it was for agency co-founder John Hunt, who is also TBWA's global creative head.
SA winners at Cannes 2009
The top scorers are shown here according to agency and total points gained. They are:
- TBWA Hunt Lascaris Jhb: 7 300
- Ogilvy Jhb: 2 850
- Net#work BBDO Jhb: 2 650
- Ogilvy Cape: 1 050
- FoxP2: 900
- Net#work BBDO Cape: 900
- Grey SA: 600; and
- DDB SA: 600.
Other short-listed entries were: Euro RSCG (3); Draftfcb Jhb (2); Lowe Bull Jhb (2); Ogilvy Dbn (2); Jupiter Cape Town (2).
Single short-lists were achieved by Draftfcb Cape, Joe Public, JWT Cape, KingJames Cape, KingJames Jhb, Lowe Bull Cape, Saatchi & Saatchi Cape, Jupiter Drawing Room Jhb, TBWA Hunt Lascaris Cape.
- Fin24.com
