Tide's Super Bowl campaign "It's a Tide Ad," State Street Advisors' "Fearless Girl" and Palau Legacy Project's "Palau Pledge" have all won Black Pencils this year at London's D&AD Awards.
The organization awarded its highest honor (which isn't handed out every year) to the Tide campaign, by Saatchi New York, for film advertising. The P&G brand ran a series of ads throughout the Super Bowl that mimicked other well-known commercials. The big win is a sign that despite Publicis' pledge last year to abstain from awards show investments in an effort to focus on its A.I. platform Marcel, notable work from the company will still make it into the major competitions--likely, through entries via other creative partners such as production companies, or clients directly. Other Publicis shops, including BBH and Leo Burnett took home multiple pencils in other categories, for clients including Audi, Ikea and Absolut.
McCann New York's "Fearless Girl" also added a Black Pencil for outdoor advertising to its growing collection of awards; State Street Advisors, which sponsored the statue, was the most awarded client at D&AD.
Host/Havas' "Palau Pledge" campaign for Palau Legacy Project won a Black Pencil for branding with a campaign that required visitors to Palau to sign a passport pledge to act in an ecologically responsible way on the island.
BBDO New York was the most awarded creative agency, with 26 pencils, followed by McCann New York and AMV BBDO. MJZ was the most awarded production company and Jones Knowles Ritchie the designs agency with the highest number of pencils. Interestingly, runners-up in the design category were two publishers, The New York Times Magazine in second place, and The Guardian, in third place.
For the second consecutive year, the U.S. topped the country rankings, with the U.K. second and Japan third.
Meanwhile, the D&AD Awards' related festival, the D&AD Festival, has announced that it is to partner with the Guardian Media Group from 2019, in an effort to expand the event. Promoted by a film created by D&AD's marketing agency Common Industry, D&AD promises the revamped festival will be an "unrivalled festival of Creativity" and will "bring together business leaders with the world's foremost thinkers, practitioners and emerging talent from across the creative and cultural sectors--including design, film, advertising, gaming, music, fashion and architecture."