SAATCHI TEAM WINS GRANDE ORCA

The winners of this year’s Grande ORCA and a trip to New York are the Saatchi & Saatchi team Damon O’Leary, Basil Christensen and Mike O’Sullivan for their “Cheerleader” spot for DB Draught. The Radio Bureau announced the winners at a luncheon yesterday (Thursday 27 July) hosted by Kerre Woodham of Newstalk ZB and Simon Doull of The ROCK at Opium Restaurant in Auckland.
The judges commented that the whole campaign was a very well produced series but that Cheerleader won through as best. The team will have to sort out who will go to New York, courtesy of The Radio Bureau and DB Breweries will enjoy spending the $50,000 worth of radio schedule for the next award winning series of ads! The judges for the Grande ORCA were Ralph van Dijk of Eardrum in Sydney, Phil Yule (The Voice Box), Peter Vegas (Spawn) and David Bell of The Media Design School.
Agencies were invited to go online and vote for the The People’s Choice Award from all the finalist and merit winners from the year. For the second year running Ogilvy's Josh Lancaster and Jamie Hitchcock won with their ad for L&P. This year’s ad “The Beach” wins them another $1,000 cash.
Gill Stewart, General Manager of the Radio Bureau also announced that, in the endeavour to make the ORCA Awards relevant and challenging to the industry, the winner of the 2007 Grande ORCA will not only win a trip to Cannes, but will have their work critiqued and acknowledged on the international stage as part of the Cannes Radio Lions at the International Advertising Festival next June.
“That means the entry period for the Grande ORCA 2007 will be just an 8 month period, to fit in with the entry eligibility for the festival. The monthly winners and merit awards from July 06 to February 07 will be eligible,” says Stewart.
And to kick off the year, the first ORCA winner of the 2007 year was announced today. The team at Saatchi have ensured that they are in the running to go to Cannes next June – their new “Yeti” spot for DB Breweries won the favour of the judges again. The team of Damon O’Leary, Basil Christensen, Ben Pegler, JayNG, Helen Steemson and Matt Swinburne are the first finalist of 2007. Saatchi's David Mygind, Debra Gerrard, and Steve Back have been awarded a Merit for their TV One Fifa World Cup commercial and finalists for the 2007 Grande ORCA award.
"We encourage agencies to enter what will obviously be a hotly contested Grande ORCA and announced in early March 07,” says Stewart.
For more information and photos from the event, go to www.trb.co.nz or contact Gill Stewart, General Manager, The Radio Bureau on 09 302 1122