Clemenger BBDO, Melbourne’s NAB ‘Break Up’ takes out Direct Lotus Best in Show at Adfest; Promo Lotus Best in Show awarded to DDB New Zealand for Steinlager ‘Believe’ campaign

Clemenger BBDO, Melbourne took out the Direct Lotus Best in Show for the NAB ‘Break Up’ campaign at ADFESTlast night, while DDB New Zealand won the Promo Lotus Best in Show for Steinlager ‘Believe’.

Out of 233 entries for the Direct Lotus, a total of 32 Lotus Awards were presented. These included 14 Bronze, 14 Silver, and 4 Gold, plus Best of Show.

Direct Lotus & Promotion Lotus Jury President, Yukio Nakayama, Executive Creative Director, Dentsu Inc. Tokyo spoke for the Jury Panel when he said, “For our team judging Best in Show for Direct Lotus, we found the winner unique, especially as it has changed people’s beliefs. National Australia Bank had already changed to a new way of working two years previously, but consumers still believed it was working in the old way. The campaign has been successful in changing that belief and in showing what one bank can do differently.”

Two Gold awards were won by Hakuhodo Products Tokyo for ‘Instant Pet House’ Dimensional Mail, firstly to Business-to-Business and secondly to Business-to-Consumer.

The other two Gold awards were captured by Leo Burnett Melbourne for Scope ‘See the Person’ and Slurpee’s ‘Bring Your Own Cup Day’.

Promo Lotus

ADFEST introduced the Promo category to the Lotus Awards last year. This year it received 262 entries for the category.

Overall, 25 Lotus Awards were awarded including Best of Show, which was won by DDB Auckland for its work on Steinlager ‘Believe’.

Three Golds were awarded. Clemenger BBDO Proximity Melbourne picked up two Gold Awards for Carlton Draught ‘Slo Lights’ and National Australia Bank ‘Break Up’. The third Gold Award was presented to Dentsu Inc. Tokyo for Kyushu Shinkansen (Kyushu Bullet train) ‘The 250Km Wave’.

In addition, ADFEST gave out 15 Bronze, 7 Silver Lotus Awards for the Promo category.

Yukio Nakayama, Executive Creative Director for Dentsu Inc. Tokyo is Jury President for Direct and Promo Lotus and said, “There were lots of entries but we enjoyed the stories which were about belief of product, brands and companies. This was a deciding factor in selecting the metal awards.”

Film Craft Lotus

George Mackenzie, Regional Managing Director – Asia Pacific/MENA for The Sweet Shop in Auckland, was Jury President of this year’s Film Craft and New Director Lotus categories.

From 110 entries, there were 3 Gold, 10 Silvers and 10 Bronze Lotus Awards given out in the Film Craft category. No Best of Show is awarded for Craft categories.

The Gold Lotus winners were Addict Media Films Seoul for Mr Pizza PR ‘The True Origins of Pizza’, Drill Inc. Tokyo for Touchwood ‘Xylophone’ and ALT.VFX Brisbane for Tooheys Extra Dry ‘The Nocturnal Migration’.

Giving his comments for Film Craft Lotus, George Mackenzie summed up the views of the Jury panel. “I think this year we found some good stuff and we gave out some medals but the good entries really stuck out compared to the others. There were quite a few longer format films entered, and I haven’t seen this before. One film ran for one hour as it was a three short film series and it was tough to judge because it was in Korean and didn’t have subtitles. My recommendation would be to make the work more accessible to everyone on the panel. We are starting to see longer format films come into the craft section.”

New Director Lotus

This year, there were 9 entries to the New Director category, from which only 2 bronze and 1 commendation were selected by the Jury Panel this year.

 “There wasn’t much work entered and nothing that really stood out for me [in the New Director category].” says Mackenzie. “There weren’t as many entries submitted from Sydney or Auckland this year as there was in 2010 and I think this is a reflection of tightening marketing budgets – it’s been a tough year financially for the industry in this region.”