Saatchi & Saatchi Australia, Ogilvy Australia and Thinkerbell take home Gold at The Caples Awards
Saatchi & Saatchi Australia, Ogilvy Australia and Thinkerbell have emerged as the Aussie Gold winners at this year’s Caples Awards.
Saatchi & Saatchi Australia secured three Golds for The Royal Australian Mint ‘Donation Dollar’; Ogilvy Australia picked up two Golds at the 2021 Caples Awards for Whitelion ‘No Home Address’ and for Mondelez Caramac ‘Unscalpable’.
Thinkerbell Australia picked up Gold, Silver and Bronze for Bega Foods’ ‘The Purple Hive Project’.
In 2020, in response to the pandemic, The Caples Awards became the world’s first free-to-enter advertising show. In 2021 The Caples remained free – and will continue to be so in the years to come.
At a time when jobs are under threat, many agencies are choosing to support their people rather than spend money on awards.
Nevertheless awards remain important.
They allow creative people to benchmark themselves.
They help agencies to attract talent.
And clients do pay attention to them.
Run by creative people for creative people, The Caples’ primary purpose is to recognise and reward work that works.
It offers a new business model, one which levels the playing field, allowing small agencies to compete on equal terms with large companies.
Sponsorships
While making money is not the main objective, some money is necessary to cover costs.
Recognising a shared belief that creativity has never been so important as now, BBDO Group and WPP have both been major sponsors of The Caples 2021.
42courses.com has also provided generous support.
This year’s Caples Awards saw 2,091 entries into 14 categories, an increase of 820 on 2020.
The 33 jurors, led by Steve Aldridge, chief creative officer of Wunderman Thompson London, voted for 54 Golds, 79 Silvers and 90 Bronzes.
Says Aldridge: “The standard of work was exceptionally high. This is a show the jury can be justifiably proud of. We believe all our winners will also be winners at Cannes Lions in June.”
Special Awards:
The Andi Emerson Award
Named after The Caples’ founder, The Andi Emerson Award is given by the President to any person he or she believes has made an outstanding contribution to creativity. Steve Aldridge’s recipient in 2021 is Julian ‘Dougie’ Douglas, Chairman of VCCP and founder of the Black representation in Marketing movement.
The Best in Show Award, sponsored by BBDO, was the unanimous choice of the jury:
Wunderman Thompson Thailand for Thai Air’s “Stay Home Miles Exchange”.
The Courageous Client Award, sponsored by WPP, was given by jury president Steve Aldridge:
HSBC UK head of brand marketing Sarah Mayall.
Best Writing/Copy Gold was awarded to:
McCann London for the “Snoop Dogg” work for Just Eat.
Best Art Direction/Design Golds were awarded to:
AMV BBDO London with “Wombstories” for Essity.
DDB Aotearoa with “Tiny Pub” for Emerson’s.
Almap BBDO Sao Paulo with “Wasabi Doritos” for Pepsico.
Agency Rankings:
1. Wunderman Thompson Thailand 28
2. McCann London 20
3= FP7 McCann MENA 18
3= Happiness (FCB) =Belgium 18
5= Colenso BBDO New Zealand 16
5= AMV BBDO London 16
For the first time, an agency from Chile won Gold. Porta Santiago won in the Not for Profit category with “First Line for the Front Line” for the Chilean Red Cross.
Other independent agencies to win include Belgian agency mortierbrigade won 1 Silver and 3 bronzes. Swedish agency Stendahls has Silver for its work for the Gothenburg Film festival.
The Caples Awards is managed by Patrick Collister, former executive creative director of Ogilvy & Mather London and head of design for The Zoo, Google’s creative thinktank in Northern Europe, with Duncan Gray, former chief creative officer for Proximity Worldwide.