The Health Education Authority’s drugs education campaign is the
surprise choice for the grand prix at this year’s IPA Advertising
Effectiveness awards.
A panel of top clients chaired by Lord Marshall, the British Airways
chairman, picked the Duckworth Finn Grubb Waters work, which is in sharp
contrast to big budget winners of recent years.
The awards - presented at London’s Hilton hotel on Tuesday evening -
were the first since a major overhaul designed to make them more
relevant to clients and to counter claims that they had become out of
date.
Other winners in the highest-ranking five-star category, from which the
grand prix winner was chosen, were Army recruitment (Saatchi & Saatchi),
Colgate (Young & Rubicam), First Direct (WCRS), Marmite (BMP), Orange
(WCRS) and Volkswagen (BMP).
Orange also took the Charles Channon Award for the best contribution to
new learning, while Bartle Bogle Hegarty’s One 2 One campaign collected
the ISBA prize for the best new entrant.
The HEA campaign took the top prize for what the judges said was its
successful infiltration of ’fortress youth’ with advertising that
neither patronised nor lectured.
The win surprised some observers, given that its results were less
easily quantifiable than the hard data backing the cases of rival
contenders for the top prize.
The awards presentation was accompanied by a war cry from the main
sponsor, the Financial Times, for agencies to regain the ground being
lost to management consultants.
David Bell, the FT’s chairman, claimed that while the value of brands as
shareholder assets had become more widely accepted by the City, agencies
were not the strong brand custodians they had been in the 60s and
70s.
Brand custodians had grown more concerned with short-term market share
than long-term equity building, he said.
Editor’s comment, p25.
