“The judges unanimously agreed the campaign idea was striking and beautifully written, which is what great newspaper advertising is all about”, says Robert Munro, the NAB’s general manager.

As a result of this lofty accolade, the creative team behind the campaign took home a cool $10,000 (the Arts Channel campaign is becoming fairly accustomed to victory: it recently took home a swag of Lions at Cannes and also won the May ORCA radio advertising award). And, adding to the package, Sky TV also went on to win the Newspaper Client of the Year award for its series of programme promotion press advertisements by DDB.

The winners were announced at a function at the Hopetoun Alpha in Auckland where guests were able to view the 13 finalists on display (check most of them out here) along with student competition finalists from AUT School of Communications and The Media Design School. The chairman of judges, Chuck Porter from Crispin Porter + Bogusky, presented his question and answer video during the show, responding to questions that were posted earlier on the Campaign Brief New Zealand website (hey, just like the Old Spice Guy, but slower).

Local judges for the Newspaper Ad of the Year competition were Rebecca Carrasco, the new creative director at Publicis Mojo, James Mok, creative director at DraftFCB, Levi Slavin, creative director at Colenso BBDO, and Angus Wardlaw, creative director at Saatchi & Saatchi.

During the show, a full page press ad announcing the night’s winner was produced live and dispatched from the venue, and it will appear in Friday’s New Zealand Herald, The Dominion Post, The Press and the Otago Daily Times.

The Ad Students’ Newspaper Advertising Competition, which was sponsored by The New Zealand Herald, was won by Edward Knowles and Charles Twaddle from The Media Design School, earning them a $500 prize. And the 48 hour bonus brief was won by Jonathan Fox and Jack Delmonte, also from The Media Design School, with a $250 prize.

NAB Newspaper Advertisement of the Year

Client: Mike Watson, Sky TV

Group Executive Creative Director: Toby Talbot

Art Director: James Tucker

Writer: Simon Vicars

Head of Art: Mike Davison

Production Manager: Nick Conetta

Account Team: Danielle Richards, Brad Armstrong, Scott Wallace

At Cannes, creatives Simon Vicars and James ‘Giant’ Tucker picked up the gold for Best Scriptwriting in the Radio Category for the ‘Pollock’ spot, while ‘Van Gogh’ and ‘Rothco’ received Silver Lion Scriptwriting gongs. All three executions also received a further Silver Lion Campaign Award in the Publications and Media category. And, not surprisingly, after all these recent international plaudits, the local judges (DraftFCB’s creative director James Mok, Trevor Plant, senior lecturer in radio at AUT’s School of Communications Studies and Shaun O’Neill, one of the award-winning creatives behind MediaWorks Radio’s  ‘Something Radio’ and also general manager of MediaWorks Radio) said the campaign was a clear winner and gave it 96 percent of the total judging scores.

And here’s what they said: “Absolutely loved the Van Gogh ad, very well written.”; “Nicely targeted. Clever but not snobby.”; and “Should a well-written print campaign be a good radio campaign? This series proves it can. Compelling stores, beautifully written, sweet sales pitch”.

Vicars and Tucker get $250 worth of CD vouchers for their trouble and the entry will go through to the annual Grande ORCA and People’s Choice Awards to be held later in the year (wonder if Dave Fane will be invited back to be MC for this year’s festivities?). If they win that, they’ll probably get a giant cheque.

Sky TV also benefit from the victory: it gets a $5000 radio schedule and, if the ad goes on to win the big one, which seems fairly likely, another $50,000 radio schedule will be awarded (*).

Check out all the spots here: SACV-60-862 SACR-75-860 SACP-75-861

Commenting on DDB’s cleverly hand-scripted long copy for the Arts Channel, the judges said: “It shows a great understanding of the target audience. A nice intelligent read”.

And as for DraftFCB: “Good use of the medium and an inspiring way to use the paper – an oasis of art in the newspaper!,” said the judges.

December and January’s judges were James Mok – DraftFCB (who abstained from the January vote due to conflict of interest), Lachlan McPherson – Publicis Mojo and Sarah Walter – The Pond.

December and January’s winning creative teams receive $250 cash with the ads sponsored by the NAB in the 2011 Axis Awards. The ads will also appear in the ‘What’s New’ section of AdMedia and are now Finalists in the 2010 $10,000 Newspaper Ad of Year competition judged later this year. Any ad that has run in any newspaper around the country is eligible to enter the competition. Email ideas@nabs.co.nz for competition details.

To view all the finalists in the current Newspaper Ad of the Year series visit the NAB website.

As my mother always said, whether you’re engaging in shemale love, being attacked by a shark,  suffering from horrible sunburn or lying under a car close to death, there’s always someone worse off than you. And, really, when you’ve got the joy of MySky’s excellent content waiting for you at home, who cares if you’ve got no arms/melanoma/shemale love guilt/or a crushed spleen? Que sera, sera, whatever will be, will be.

DDB’s entertainingly politically incorrect ‘Your Happy Place’ brand campaign for Sky Televison has brought these overly optimistic insights to life with the launch of the MySky TVC and four 45 second TVCs highlighting sport, movies, documentaries and lifestyle shows.  A large outdoor campaign will also run from the beginning of December and it will be supported by print and online.

DDB’s executive creative director Toby Talbot says the TVC uses extreme exaggeration to tell the story and juxtaposes a range of horrible situations with a joyful version of ‘Que Sera Sera’.

The ‘alternative’ version of the song went to air this week after 9.30pm and a family-friendly version will be screened before 9.30pm. A 90 second uncut version will play in cinemas.

New York director David Shane came to New Zealand for a month to shoot the ad, which was filmed in and around Auckland (doubtful he’d get away with this in the States) and Aussie actors were used to avoid Kiwi actor overexposure.

Kiwi expat, Hamish Rothwell from Good Oil Films in Sydney shot the four content spots, ‘Jonah’, ‘Martin Luther’, ‘Rose’ and ‘Nigella’.

Who for: SkyTV

Why we like it: ‘Lomu, aww, aww, aww, awww.’  A bravura performance in the dentist’s chair. And the armchair. DDB go to the happy place.

• BBC television content is now available on your mobile. Let the floodgates open.
• How do Kiwis spend their online time?
• Are SkyTV and Vodafone hatching an on-demand plot to counter TiVo?
• Magazine stats to impress dinner guests.

Take a gander at the real deal MediaMonitor 16-November-09