11th May, 2009

The last thirty days have been a little crazy on the digital awards front for the Clemenger Group.

The Webby Awards is the leading international award honoring excellence on the Internet. Established in 1996 during the Web’s infancy, the Webbys are presented by The International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, a 550-member body of leading Web experts, business figures, luminaries, visionaries and creative celebrities.

We performed very well against some top class digital operations. We received six finalists in total which put us equal sixth in the world going into the big night.  RG/A received 14 nominations, Wieden + Kennedy (8 nominations), Crispin, Porter + Bogusky (8), Clemenger BBDO (6), DDB Worldwide (6), Razorfish (5), Goodby Silverstein + Partners (4), BBDO (4), Lean Mean Fighting Machine (3), Poke (3), and Euro RSCG (3).

We have converted two of the six finalists to Gold with Clemenger BBDO Wellington winning the Webby Award in the Banner Singles category as well as the Webby Award for Integrated Mobile Experience for Distracted Drivers.

At the One Show Interactive Awards, Clemenger BBDO Sydney received a Gold Pencil (Integrated Branding) and Sliver Pencil (viral) for Sega ‘Offset the Evil’, Aim Proximity/Colenso BBDO Auckland won A Silver Pencil for Yellow Pages ‘Yellow Treehouse’, Colenso BBDO a Bronze Pencil for New Zealand Book Council ‘Read a book at work’ while sister shop Clemenger BBDO Wellington won a Silver Pencil for New Zealand Transport Agency ‘Distracted Drivers’

Also this month AIM Proximity was also announced this month as the world’s most awarded agency for the first quarter of 2009 by the prestigious Won Report. For the period January to April 2009, Aim Proximity were by far and away the most awarded agency in the world. Not just the world of direct, the world of digital or the world of ambient, the whole wide world of everything.

Aim Proximity have three of the ten most awarded campaigns. One peice to point out that I haven’t mentioned belore on my blog is the work for New Zealand’s Yellow Pages iPhone Jonny campaign for instance is a good example of the work coming out of the agency. Is it DM, is it guerrilla marketing, is it digital, is it brand communications? Yes, yes, yes and yes. The idea was to put a bloke at the front of the queue to buy the new iPhone 3G, which Apple launched in New Zealand before anywhere else in the world.

He used Yellow Pages to keep body and soul together over the three days he waited. Pizza, exercise bike, sleeping bag, he got them all by calling Yellow from his (old) mobile. His blog and Yellow’s website gave punters the chance to win the iPhone from him once he’d bought it. And the whole stunt generated PR worth millions around the world.

Dave King, Creative Director of AIM Proximity (left) Darryn Melrose, CEO of AIM Proximity (right)

Darryn Melrose, CEO of AIM Proximity commented: "We’ve had a long history of success in New Zealand. To discover that we are the best in the world is just amazing. We’re very proud, but we’ll keep working hard to keep our rankings up high, and deliver great business results for our clients." Dave King, Creative Director of AIM Proximity added: "Winning awards is great. Winning awards for major clients like the Warehouse, Yellow and Vodafone is really satisfying, so thanks to each of these guys for letting us do the work."