Saatchi & Saatchi AWARDED at CANNES

Saatchi & Saatchi AWARDED at CANNES

Ideas Company Saatchi & Saatchi New Zealand has won two coveted Lion awards at the Cannes International Advertising Festival, the advertising industry equivalent of the Oscars.

Considered the pinnacle of media awards globally, the "Best Use of Television" award was made to Saatchi Saatchi's "Speed of Fire" television commercial for the New Zealand Fire Service.

The second Lion, also in the media category of the Festival, was for Saatchi & Saatchi's "Bruised Ambassadors" - part of the campaign for the New Zealand Women's Refuge appeal in 2002.

They were selected from a global shortlist of almost one hundred entries.

Saatchi & Saatchi's New Zealand Media Director Alistair Jamison said that both projects were honoured for the way in which cutting-edge creative and the media environment in which they were placed, worked together.

The New Zealand Fire Service television spot used short commercials spread over an entire ad break to show that house fires could start and engulf a house in less than three minutes, the normal duration of a television advertising break.

The Women's Refuge campaign employed an even more unconventional use of media, by making up real-life women business executives to look as if they had been physically attacked. The women were then sent into the workplace, briefed to respond to colleagues' queries with some of the excuses used by real domestic-abuse victims. This was followed by an email campaign to explain the truth about their "injuries".

"The international recognition of a Cannes Lion is gratifying - but the real reward is the fantastic success we've had with both campaigns, in terms of delivering public awareness for these issues," said Jamison.

Advertising journalist Lara Sinclair wrote from Cannes that "New Zealand has again shown itself to be one of the media hotspots of the advertising world."

Cannes Jury President Farnando Rhodes said New Zealand and South Africa were the two countries that were performing well in the area of advertising media. He predicted that future entries would develop a better connection between media planning, direct marketing and database marketing.

Saatchi & Saatchi reigned supreme at the 2002 Cannes Festival, where its awards included Global Network of the year and Agency of the Year for its London agency. It also won leading U.S. trade publication Advertising Age's Global Agency Network of the year award for 2002, and Adweek's Global Agency of the Year award.

The Saatchi & Saatchi network grew worldwide billings by $US 1.3 billion last year, representing overall growth of around 20%.

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