GLOBAL – UNITED KINGDOM, JUNE 17, 2013 – McCann Melbourne stormed into D&AD’s record books with a world-beating haul of six Pencils for its highly viral PSA, ‘Dumb Ways to Die’, and a D&AD Agency of the Year Pencil.
A total of 618 honors were awarded for the 2013 D&AD Awards across in-book, nominations, 51 Yellow Pencils, four Black Pencils and, for the first time, a White Pencil.
‘Dumb Ways’ scored five Yellow Pencils and one of four coveted Black Pencils awarded at the mid-June show. The remaining three were awarded to work from the UK, chiefly work created for the 2012 London Olympics.
The UK’s 4creative’s powerful TV spot for Channel 4 to promote the 2012 Paralympics, ‘Meet the Superhumans’, won in TV and Cinema Communications, while Heatherwick Studio’s ‘Olympic Cauldron’ scored in the Spatial Design/Installations category.
The UK’s third Black Pencil went to GOV.UK website won for Writing for Websites & Digital Design category.
‘Help I Want to Save a Life’, Droga5 2012 Cannes Lions Grand Prix for Good winner, took home the first-ever White Pencil, launched to reward creativity for social good. Created in collaboration with boutique pharma company Help Remedies, the project offered an ingenious solution to spurring marrow donor registrations with its adhesive bandage products doubling up as donor kits.
But the night belonged to ‘Dumb Ways to Die’, a viral video that originated from an unlikely source, Metro Rail. The combination of black humor, catchy tunes and animated characters all meeting rather grisly ends has charmed its notoriously hard to reach target audience and festival judges from AdFest to D&AD and everything in between.
‘Dumb Ways’, which went into the competition with a record nine nominations, won Yellow Pencils in five categories: Art Direction, Earned Media Campaigns, Digital Advertising, TV & Cinema Advertising and Writing for Film Advertising.
McCann Melbourne’s wins comes just three years after ‘Best Job in the World’ for Tourism Australia dominated the 2010 D&AD Awards with its haul of two Black and two Yellow Pencils.
‘Meet the Superhumans was a multiple award winner, taking three Yellow Pencils in Editin for Film Advertising, TV & Cinema Communications, Direction for Film Advertising and Use of Music for Film Advertising, alongside a similar haul for R/GA in the US for ‘Nike + Fuelband’. The next most-awarded work were Brazil’s Leica Store São Paulo’s ‘Soul’ and 20th Century Fox’s ‘Prometheus Viral ‘David’ for the UK, each winning two Yellow Pencils.
Asia performed strongly, led by Australia with 50 awards in all including a Black and seven Yellow Pencils, followed by Japan with 26 awards and 17 for New Zealand. The latter two both scored two Yellow Pencils each. One Yellow Pencil each was awarded to Singapore, with 16 awards overall, and China with seven awards in all.
