Child Abuse spots take out Sirens Round 5
For the first time in the history of the Siren Awards, an ad campaign including three ads, has won all the categories in round five: single, campaign and craft.
The ASCA campaign, via Whybin\TBWA, Sydney – “21st Birthday”, “Rugby” and “Birthday” – all use humour in a confronting way to highlight the effects of child abuse.
“21st Birthday” won the overall and single categories of Round 5 and “Birthday” won the craft category. Additionally “Birthday” was highly commended in the single category.
The ASCA campaign was written by Steve Dodds (above left) and David Lidster (middle). Sound engineer was Beau Silvester (above right) from Whybin TBWA and creative directors were Garry Horner and Matt Kemsley.
Judges and previous round winners, Richard Berney and Mark Fretten from303 Advertising, Perth said confrontational campaigns get peopletalking – and it is from this social conversation that change can comeabout: “The ACSA campaign’s clever manipulation of the hackneyedcliches of happy family life in a Festen-meets-The Castle-styleexecution surprises shocks and galvanises in equal measure. We like themusic too.”
Dodds and Lidster said that not many ads feature people laughing aboutchild abuse: “Most public service commercials try to tug at the heartstrings, or shock with graphic imagery. We figured people tune out tothat kind of approach. A lot of people think victims of childhood abuseshould just get over it and we wanted to show they can’t. It’d be greatif they could, but they can’t.”
Judge of the craft category for round five was Siren Creative Council member, Brad Grisaffe, from Audiobrien, Sydney.
There were several other highly commended ads in round five. A spotfor Ikea, called “Not Funny”, written by Dav Tabeshfar from 303 Group,was highly commended in the single category.
The Thredbo “Summer Campaign”, written by Michael Dawson and ChrisBerents from Clemenger BBDO, Sydney was highly commended in thecampaign category and a spot for Scitech, called “Scitech Plane”,with sound engineer, Marty Braine from studio, Brainestorm was alsohighly commended in the craft category.
The national Siren Awards are run by Commercial Radio Australia and aredesigned to recognise the best radio advertising in the country. Roundfive is the final round for the 2009 Siren Awards. The 2009 Gold SirenWinner, equivalent to the best radio ad in Australia, will be announcedin Sydney on May 8, at Waters Edge, Walsh Bay. The winner of the 2009Siren Awards for creative excellence in radio advertising will beannounced at a breakfast, hosted by Jonathan ‘Jono’ Coleman and Ian’Dano’ Rogerson, from the drivetime show, “The Jono & Dano Show”,on-air on WS-FM (Sydney), GOLD 104 (Melbourne) and 4KQ (Brisbane), aswell as many regional stations across Australia.
The breakfast will feature the best radio ads of the past twelvemonths. The 2009 winner, chosen by a panel of industry experts, will beautomatically entered into the Cannes Radio Lions – to be held in Juneand its writer will also win two tickets to attend the festival.
Entries for the first round of 2010 Siren Awards are now open and close on 22 May. For more information visit the dedicated website.
33 Comments
Well deserved, well done guys.
From the standard of the other rounds I dare say we have our overall winner here. These would be the best of a rather bad bunch. Besides, the judges would be looking for the ad/campaign most likely to score a gong at Cannes. This sounds like the closest thing we’ve got Australia. I don’t like it. But some people love it. Which is bound to rate higher than four rounds of “yeah, it’s ok I guess” ads.
Nice ad but isn’t is part of the 2009 terms & conditions that the spot must be 30 seconds?
30 seconds MINIMUM. My bad.
3.18
Well done guys. This is a huge effort.
Doddsy looks better than he has in years.
Congrats Steve – well deserved. A great campaign
Nice to see you’ve still got it Doddsy, great stuff.
A clean sweep,now that is class. Actually i really like these spots,some may say it’s an easy category,but the truth is ,doing great work is never easy.
I believe the judges are the winners from the previous round. How do they get around having to judge work from their own agency? just curious.
These ads are so appallingly.
What’s the insight here?
Where’s the smart bit?
Where is the craft?
WTF is going on here?
Who the hell judged these?
I get the idea. Great ads guys & well deserved.
Child abuse is no laughing matter. The only thing that’s a joke here is these ads. Terribly disappointed, (but not surprised) that these ads are getting accolades within the industry. The advertising industry just can’t get enough of charity ads This is an ad that advertising people will like, but the target market will just think are hopelessly inappropriate. I wonder if the creatives responsible for this will be thinking about the lifetime of hurt and pain victims endure when they’re swanning around France tif they happen to win the Siren awards. Pathetic.
To be taken seriously, the Siren Awards shouldn’t be judged by last round’s winners.
Yep…..
Nup. Sorry, hate the ads. But I’m just an opinion. Don’t abuse me for it.
Luv your work,well done.
Heard these alot driving around, in my opinion, it doesn’t matter if you don’t like them.,how could you ever ‘like’ an ad dealing with such a horrid topic…..but they do a bloody brilliant job of making you aware of the issue, Deserved winners.
getting a radio brief is like get a brief for a digital banner. they are a pain in the ass, rarely good and even when they are good, they don’t blow you away.
If I never get another radio brief in my life, I’ll be a happy man!
same goes for banner ads – 50k, rich media, whatever, it is a pile of poo.
‘awareness of the issue’ is the new advertising license to do whatever you want with no actual responsibility for results/action.
come up with an idea that actually helps abused kids not just makes aware it goes on.
i know it goes on, i know its awful. So stop wasting everyone’s time improving your book at the expense of charities.
On a positive note: really good. Just getting people to talk about it raises the issue.
I don’t agree that these display award winning thinking. Shock value without any real insight or attempt to change our perception of the issue. A bit lazy.
I ‘d like to know what an abuse victim thinks.
I’ll put it this way: I hadn’t heard of ASCA (or their pilght) prior to this campaign. And now I’ll remember them well after this campaign has run…
Job well done.
What the f*ck is “Festen-meets-The-Castle”?
They’re great spots,haven’t heard alot better this year.
10.17am, ‘come up with an idea that actually helps abused kids’ – not sure that would’ve been the brief considering it’s for a charity called Adult Survivors of Child Abuse
9:28 PM: Well show us some of your fabulous work then…. come on, do it, do it!!
12.35 – I disagree.
Until you mentioned the name I still hadn’t heard of ASCA, although I’ve heard these spots many times. And in terms of now knowing about their plight, well, all I take out is it’s bad to abuse kids, because the effects last forever. There’s no news there.
Well done Steve,fab wireless!
Ahh 4.35… good luck with your choice of career mate.
Gets my vote,actually i think Ruby is the best though.
From your old mate in London, brilliant work. Keep it up.
April 7, 2009 12:47 AM
“but the target market will just think are hopelessly inappropriate.”
How do you know?
Dodsy – a great head for radio
Radio. What’s radio?