Australia ranked #3 in the world behind UK and US at D&AD 2013 Awards; Japan ranked at #5 overall; Singapore and NZ comes in at equal #7

Australian agencies were recognised with a record 49 Awards by the juries at the 2013 D&AD Awards. The Aussies bagged 31 In-Book awards while there are 18 opportunities for agencies from Australia to gain Yellow Pencils with Nomination honours. The total haul meant that Australia took third place in the overall list of awarded nations – behind the UK and US.

Japan was the next best performer from Asia-Pacific with a total of 26 awards made up of 7 Nominations and 19 In-Book awards. Singapore and New Zealand ranked a creditable equal #7 in the world with one Nomination and 15 In-Book awards in their total of 16.

Leading the Australian charge was McCann, Melbourne, which scooped a total of 14 awards for its Metro Trains “Dumb Ways to Die” campaign – the highest number of awards for a single campaign at the awards this year.

The campaign gathered five In-Book awards and nine Nominations across various categories (Animation & Illustration for Digital Advertising. Art Direction for Digital Advertising, Art Direction for Poster Advertising, Earned Media Campaigns, Poster Advertising Campaigns, Sound Design & Use of Music for Radio Advertising, TV Commercials 120-240 seconds, Web Films and Writing for Film Advertising).

Entrants will have to wait until the award ceremony on 12 June to find out whether they have been awarded a coveted Yellow Pencil.

China has a total of 7 awards – including 2 Nominations.

Thailand has 5 In-Book awards. Korea has 4 and Hong Kong, India and The Philippines has 2. Indonesia and Malaysia have one In-Book award each.

In total there were 614 D&AD In-book and Nomination awards given to work in this year’s Awards (before Yellow Pencils have been awarded, which takes place in June).

Globally, at this stage (before Yellow Pencils have been awarded), McCann Erickson Melbourne leads the pack with its work for Metro Trains (“Dumb Ways to Die”) scooping 14 In-book and Nomination plaudits. There was a crop of awards too for R/GA’s Nike+ FuelBand, which took 7 awards and 4Creative’s “Meet the Superhumans”, The Martin Agency’s “Clouds Over Cuba” for The JFK Presidential Library & Museum, each of which got six awards from the juries.

Says Tim Lindsay, Chief Executive of D&AD: “This has been a great year for Australian creative work – with forty nine campaigns recognised by the juries, the country’s agencies have reaffirmed their status as global powerhouses. However, what is notable is the range of categories and campaigns that gained that recognition – with work across graphics, web, digital, print and earned media all recognised. The country’s agencies were in rude creative health during last year and it’s been a pleasure to see the product of that creativity at the awards this year.”