Advertising Creative Excellence Honoured at 24th AXIS Awards
A BMW Mini outdoor advertising campaign, created by Colenso BBDO, has taken the Best in Show trophy in this year’s AXIS
Awards that recognise excellence in advertising creativity.
“The campaign entitled ‘Corners’ received nearly unanimous top marks and simply blew everything else out of the water,”
said the Chairman of Judges, Tim Hanrahan, of Portland’s Wieden+Kennedy agency.
Agency DDB New Zealand was the big agency winner of the evening taking out five of the 12 Golds awarded, with strong
showings from Saatchi and Saatchi and Colenso BBDO each with three Golds.
DDB’s Sky Television advertisement, ‘The Last Supper’ won gold and the Grande AXIS electronic awards and Sky was awarded
Advertiser of the Year.
The Grande AXIS print award went to an entry from Saatchi and Saatchi for the Women’s Refuge called ‘Kelly’s Story’, it
won gold in the Public Service/Charity Print category.
“The way I see it, work that won a place in this show would do well in any show in the ad world. Furthermore, any of the
gold winners this year could be worthy of Grande AXIS awards, but unfortunately there could only be two,” said Tim
Hanrahan.
And the Chairman and CEO of Colenso BBDO and the man who wrote the copy for the Cadbury Crunchie “train” commercial has
won the AXIS award for Industry Excellence. Roger MacDonnell has been CEO of Colenso since it's inception in 1969 and
has been instrumental in driving Colenso to its current pinnacle. He has personally been involved in the creation of
some of New Zealand’s most iconic advertising and is a member of the Clio hall of fame. The AXIS award acknowledges
Roger’s significant contribution to the creative industry.
The judging panel was made up of two overseas creative directors and seven local directors. The panel judged 868 entries
recognising 90 bronze, 49 silver and 12 gold awards. The biggest award tally went to DDB New Zealand with 37, followed
by Colenso BBDO with 32 and Saatchi and Saatchi with 23.
The Communication Agencies Association (CAANZ) AXIS Awards are held every year to find the most creative advertising
across all media – including television, radio, print, outdoor and on-line.