The Brand Agency, Perth’s ‘Drug Aware’ radio commercial wins round 4 of Siren Awards
A radio commercial for the West Australian government initiative, Drug Aware, about not driving on drugs, has won the overall and single category for round four of the 2010 Siren Awards. Written by Mitch Mitchell and Warrick Sears (left) from The Brand Agency in Perth, the spot was aired only at night to maximize its impact for its target audience.
Judge and previous round winners, Ed James, copywriter, and JakubSzymanski, art director, from DDB Sydney said: “Paranoid was the one adthat actually took us by surprise. There was great writing in some ofthe other ads, and some great spots, but this one really stood out forus.”
A spot for Main Roads WA, called Snore was highly commendedin the single category. It was written by Josh Langley from radiostation, Southern Cross Media – Hot FM/RadioWest in Bunbury.
Winner of the campaign category was three ads promoting the range of TAFE qualifications available in Victoria. Called ‘Piece of Paper’, the campaign was written by Chris Andrews, Harsh Kapadia and James Orr (pictured left) from JWT Melbourne for Skills Victoria.
Highly commended in the campaign category were three spots for online recruitment agency, Seek.com, called ‘If It Exists’, written by Andrew Woodhead from Leo Burnett, Melbourne.
Winner of the craft category was a commercial for Save the Children promoting its Survive to Five campaign, called ‘Reaching Five’, with sound engineer, Dylan Stephens (pictured left) from production studio, Risk Sound in Melbourne.
Judge and member of the Siren Council, Craig Moore, creative director of OneForAll in Sydney, said of the winning commercial: “A lot of people go for the ‘cute kid’ route, usually to hide the lack of an idea, but is really hard to pull it off production wise. This one sounds great.”
There were three highly commended spots in the craft category. Uniting Church called ‘Loneliness’, produced by sound engineers, Pete Best and Scott Illingworth from Best FX in Adelaide; Victoria University ‘Save the World’, with sound engineer, Sandy Milne from Risk Sound in Melbourne and Dorsogna ‘Fishing’, with sound engineer, Marty Braine from Brainestorm in Perth.
The national Siren Awards are run by Commercial Radio Australia and are designed to recognise the best radio advertising in the country. For more information visit the dedicated website: www.sirenawards.com.au
13 Comments
I couldn’t hear the radio ad properly because some dude was talking over it. Did they upload it correctly??
Very bizarre choice of winner.
K, here’s my theory about getting the last round’s winners to pick the next round’s winner.
They’re all vying for the one big prize at the end (trip to Cannes).
So do you reckon the best ad wins every round?
I don’t.
Nor would i pick the best ad if i’d won the previous round.
Fuck i love this job.
ANY of the Skills spots are better than the winner.
The campaign winning ads are fantastic – love them. As someone has mentioned any of those three are so much better than the single winner.
I agree with 10:43. It’s a ridiculous system. Why not get someone ‘impartial’? The could be a caxtons do it, why not sirens? Cause this is just taking the piss.
I like the Skills spots. Well done for getting some interest into a very government tag.
@9:27
I second you.
Well I’m just going to say it, that sucked.
@9.27 Ditto
Look, they’ve even had a moody shot done. Nobody tell them why the really won. It’s like Sissy Spacek standing doe-eyed on stage in that white dress. 10.43pm’s post is the bucket of offal teetering above her
Gotta agree. More lame judging from the Sirens.
“Paranoid was the one ad that actually took us by surprise”.
Finding someone has taken a shit in your bed is also a surprise. But you wouldn’t publicly declare it as your favourite thing of the month now, would you?
Interesting theory Hmmm…
But at the end of the year, the judges listen to everything that’s been shortlisted (over 50 spots) and judge on that. What won the rounds throughout the year is of no consequence.
I’m pretty sure that most, if not all years, the best work tends to win at year’s end. Which is the most important thing anyway.