Media&Marketing Emmet OliverBritish agency Lowe Worldwide and two Irish agencies, Initiative and McCann Erickson, have scooped the most prestigious awards in this year's outdoor advertising competition.
Lowe and McCann Erickson each won three awards, while Initiative won the award for effectiveness in an outdoor advertising campaign with its Guinness hurling ads.
Lowe Worldwide won the most prestigious grand prix accolade for its series of Festival Fit ads for Heineken Green Energy.
McCann Erickson's "summer" campaign for Coca-Cola was honoured by the judges for the way it linked summer activities to the shapes of bottles and cans of Coca-Cola.
The Heineken Green Energy campaign, which featured the tag line "Are You Festival Fit?", was considered by the judges to be "highly creative, original, fresh and up to the minute".
Ms Su Duff, director of the Outdoor Media Association, which organises the awards, said companies in Ireland were increasingly recognising the excellent potential of outdoor advertising.
"The calibre of strategy, copy, art direction, design, innovation and use of the medium is testament to this," she said
The Initiative GAA ad, which has been widely acclaimed in sporting circles, won the campaign effectiveness award for its "Not Men But Giants" idea.
The judges were impressed with the campaign's success in achieving target market awareness of 90 per cent and, therefore, improving brand image amongst the public.
The ad also linked effectively into the community spirit of hurling.
The full list of winners is available online at: www.outdoorawards.ie.
Erin goes to Young
Young Advertising has been appointed by Campbells to handle the strategic and creative advertising account for Erin Foods. The account was won in a competitive pitch against Chemistry, AFA O'Meara and the Larkin Partnership.
Young recently won the Onken Dairies and DDB Promotions accounts.
Complaints filed
Seven ads for food and drink were among the 19 complaints filed in the past few weeks to the Advertising Standards Authority of Ireland (ASAI), according to its bulletin released yesterday.
While McCann Erickson got away with its Heineken ad (featuring a man dipping his hand into a vat of ice), a Coors Light ad from DDFH&B fell foul of the regulator.
The poster ad featured a man's arms clasped around a woman with his hand on her bottom and the copy read "Smooth and well rounded with 4.3 per cent strength - goes down easy".
According to the ASAI, complainants said they found the advertisement to be "degrading to women, in that it suggested sexual availability and belittled women in general by reducing their bodies to sexual objects".
The advertisers replied that the picture merely showed a man with his arms around a woman's waist and there was absolutely no depiction of sexual activity. They said that the people featured in it were "fully clothed and the only activity depicted was recreational".
The ASAI said the advertisement did not respect the dignity of women and was concerned it could imply that drinking the product could contribute to sexual or social success.
In line with strong complaints in Britain, the Grey Advertising television ad for Wrigleys, Get Rid Of Your Dog Breath, also fell foul of the authorities.
It shows a dishevelled young man asleep on a couch who sits up and a dog is pushed out of his mouth in a vomiting motion.
According to the ASAI, complainants found the commercial "repulsive, grossly offensive, sickening and revolting".
The advertisers said they were sorry to hear the advertisement had generated some complaints; it certainly had not been their intention to offend consumers.
However, the ASAI upheld the complaint and reiterated that advertisers should take account of "public sensitivities" and not use offensive or provocative copy or images merely to attract attention.
Any advertising, marketing or media news, please email eoliver@irish-times.ie
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