Perfetti and Cossette left last night’s celebration with the Best of Show award for the “Make Art Pop” campaign for Mentos Gum. The campaign, which featured artwork made from Mentos’ bubble packaging, also won a gold in the Integrated Campaign category and two golds in Out-of-Home Non-Standard Format Campaign.
The 15-member jury debated the award for more than two hours and went through several rounds of voting before selecting Perfetti.
“It was a tight race for best of show, as opposed to last year when [Dove] Evolution won almost unanimously,” said Angus Tucker, co-creative director at John St and co-chair of this year’s 15-member jury.
“There were two really strong candidates. I’m glad Mentos won. You really can’t think of a more traditional, seemingly boring account. They almost stood for ‘bad-vertising,’ ” he joked, referencing the infamous “Freshmaker” ads that have been parodied for years. “But they got an idea that they executed brilliantly across a wide variety of media. It was executed online perfectly and they got user-generated content that actually worked. The outdoor installations they did were really interesting.”
Advertiser of the Year honours went to Playland, a theme park in Vancouver, for having a consistently strong performance across all categories. Playland’s TV, radio, outdoor and online campaign (which brought home a total of 11 medals and one Craft award) touted the park’s more extreme aspects. It showed stuffed animals vomiting their stuffing and business people having flashbacks to certain rides.
“I loved the work with the stuffed animals,” said Christopher Loudon, publisher and editor-in-chief of Marketing. “It’s such an essentially simple idea that was beautifully executed and is so smart.”
However, the night’s biggest winner was Playland’s agency of record, Rethink. The Vancouver agency walked away with 41 awards—13 gold, 13 silver and 15 bronze. The three most decorated marketers were Rethink clients: Science World in Vancouver won eight awards, Langley, B.C.-based scuba gear company Bare won six as did the B.C. Lions football team.
Tucker attributes Rethink’s performance to both the agency’s creative talent and its clients. “They have tight, nicely defined strategies,” said Tucker. “The B.C. Lions clearly know who watches CFL football and they just go for it.”
Both Tucker and Loudon were particularly impressed by work submitted in the radio categories this year, which saw no gold awards in 2007.
This year’s radio gold winners included Philips for its “Shave Everywhere” campaign; Subaru, for “Nonstop” in the Radio Single category; and Lacasse Jean Antiquaire for its five-second “What’s new?” single.
“I love the fact that a five-second spot won gold because it’s so inspired,” Loudonsaid. “It’s a perfect example of out-of-the-box thinking.”
