Publicis Australia has taken out Best of Show at the 2019 Brisbane Advertising and Design Club Awards with its Great Barrier Reef campaign, scUber, for client Tourism and Events Queensland.
The campaign won three gold, two silver and a bronze.
Publicis collected the largest string of awards, with 18 medals and finalist placings.
“In this serious environment we live in it’s getting harder and harder to be fun," Chairman of judges Dantie van der Merwe says.
"It’s even harder to create awareness for a very serious issue in a fun way. It’s this perfect balance that made this work a clear stand out.”
The Great Barrier Reef is a world heritage listed natural wonder, but negative media coverage following bleaching events had hurt its reputation worldwide.
Tourism and Events Queensland needed to change the conversation and stimulate global tourism interest in the reef.
Publicis’ solution: create the world’s first rideshare submarine on the Great Barrier Reef, called scUber, by creating a global partnership between client Tourism & Events Queensland and Uber.
From the window of the submarine, Publicis and TEQ showed the world the reef like never before, a unique and vibrant underwater world teeming with life.
The campaign results were spectacular, generating a massive 4,320 pieces of live global news coverage and over 4.5 billion opportunities to see the campaign.
The publicity coverage was valued at over $130 million.
ROMEO Digital followed with the next overall number of medals and finalists, awarded a total of five gold, three silver, three bronze and another three finalists.
ROMEO was awarded for its outstanding digital work for client Queensland Museum for Anzac Legacy Gallery and Anzac AR Correspondent App and also for Queensland Surf Life Saving for Life-Fi.
Taking home Gold for Innovative Use of Digital and UX Design – Life-Fi is a wireless network that only works between the flags on the beach where beachgoers can connect their phones and receive critical information on beach conditions in their own language.
The night also belonged to a number of smaller independent agencies with JSA Creative, Flip, GrowthOps, and Theola also taking home record medal hauls.
The awards night was hosted by comedian Daniel Connell with nearly 600 people in attendance.
The BADC received over 640 entries vied for recognition in over 90 categories.
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