The Peace-Loving McWhopper Takes Top Prize at the Andy Awards

Y&R New Zealand won the top prize, the Grandy Award, at the 52nd International Andy Awards in New York on Tuesday night for its audacious McWhopper idea for Burger King. In an effort to put differences aside on United Nations Peace Day, the campaign proposed for BK and McDonald's to create a hybrid burger that combined the restaurants' signature offerings, the Whopper and the Big Mac, into "one delicious, peace-loving burger." A proposal on mcwhopper.com laid out the special sandwich, uniforms with both chains' logos and a pop-up restaurant in Atlanta that would serve the burger. Even though McDonald's declined the offer, calling for a bigger push for peace, Burger King still garnered more than 8.9 billion impressions and increased awareness of Peace Day by 40%. "For the jury, it was an audacious way to do something and it's all tying back to good," said Gina Grillo, president and CEO of The Ad Club of N.Y. and The International Andy Awards. "The social impact of it was just crazy." Ms. Grillo said one of the unique aspects of the awards this year was the Y&R network "dominating as both the Grandy Award and Public Service Award winner." GPY&R Brisbane and Melbourne won the Richard T. O'Reilly Award for Outstanding Public Service for the "Melanoma Likes Me" social marketing campaign that turned the disease into a character that followed and reacted to the social media posts of Aussies having fun in the sun. The award includes a $10,000 cash prize that will be donated to the Melanoma Patients Australia charity. The Bravery Award, which was introduced two years ago and recognizes marketers for courageous ideas the move the industry forward, went to REI for the #OptOutside campaign, which included work from Venables Bell & Partners. Top agencies walking away with multiple awards included Leo Burnett, which won 16 Andys, including nine Golds, Adam&Eve/DDB with 15 awards and Wieden & Kennedy with 11. Leo Burnett was awarded Golds for its work on "37 Days" for Atlantic Group (France), "Safety Truck" for Samsung Argentina, "GoMart Delivery Service" for GoJek (Indonesia), "House-Maison Rebrand" for House Maison (Canada) and "Just" for WWF Australia. A trend that came out of this year's awards was around "respect paid to continuing campaigns," said Ms. Grillo, who added that "often times when creative people get together they're not very enthusiastic about reoccurring campaigns." One of the ongoing efforts that was honored included Old Spice's "Make A Smellmitment" campaign that featured the brand's legacy pitchman Mr. Mustafa in a feud with newer pitchman Terry Crews. The initiative, created by Wieden & Kennedy, took home two Silver Andys. McCann and The Martin Agency also won a total of 10 Andys, followed by FCB with eight and Marcel with six.

The Peace-Loving McWhopper Takes Top Prize at the Andy Awards

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