Newspapers Canada has announced the winners of the 2015 Extra Awards, honouring the best newspaper advertising from the past year.
In a departure from previous years, the industry association eliminated the gold, silver and bronze awards, instead honoring “winners” in five categories: Best Use of Print Medium; Food, Beverages, Drugs; Online Ad Newspaper Website; Public Service and Advocacy; and Travel, Tourism, Transportation.
Rethink led all agencies with three wins for its work with clients Splashdown Waterpark, United MMA and Canadian Fair Trade Network, while Leo Burnett Toronto, Cossette, FCB Toronto and LG2 all won one Extra apiece.
Rethink was one of three winning agencies in the Public Service and Advocacy category, with a series of ads for the Canadian Fair Trade Network titled “Long Tag Sweater,” “Long Tag Hoodie” and “Long Tag Jacket.”
Each ad featured an item of clothing bearing an extra long label documenting the hardships endured by people working in sweatshops where it was made, concluding with the words “The label doesn’t tell the whole story.”
FCB Toronto also won in the category for its “Rice” and “Bouquet” ads, created for PFLAG as part of its “Nobody’s Memories” campaign promoting the legalization of same-sex marriage. The ads featured what appeared to be historical images of gay and lesbian couples getting married, accompanied by the expression “These are nobody’s memories.”
Leo Burnett Toronto, meanwhile, won for its “Humans for Humans” campaign, which featured real tweets from people belittling homeless people (eg: “How are you white and homeless??? What a waste of life and opportunity”) alongside images of actual homeless people, and invited readers to visit the website HumansForHumans.ca to see their response.
Rethink also won in the Travel, Tourism and Transportation category for its ad “Shaky Dad” ad for Splashdown Waterpark, which featured a freeze-frame picture of a man shaking water off himself like a dog.
It also won for its online “United MMA 2014 Campaign” ad, which featured an MMA fighter kicking a computer user’s cursor, smashing it into little pieces, whenever it came near him.
Lg2 was a winner in the Food, Beverages and Drugs category for its “Donut,” “Cone” and “Chocolate” ads for Krispy Kernels. All three ads featured an image of a drooping eyelid, to which one of the three food items had been affixed with string, accompanied by the message “Because junk makes you sleepy.
Cossette won the Best Use of the Medium award for its “Epic Pour” ad for McDonald’s, which showed a stream of coffee snaking its way down through 24 Hours Vancouver’s puzzle page into a strip ad at the bottom of the page. The ad featured a cup of McDonald’s coffee, accompanied by text reading “An epic coffee deserves an epic pour.”
This year’s Extra Awards were judged by Martin Bélanger, managing director/creative director of Union; DDB Edmonton creative director Eva Polis; Saatchi & Saatchi Canada writer/group creative director Matt Antonello and Co-Op Advertising creative director Pete Ross.
