Erin Moy, Jess Wheeler, and Léon Bristow Pick AUNZ’s July Work of the Month
In partnership with AWARD, here is LBB AUNZ’s July Work of the Month, chosen by Entropico founder Erin Moy, SICKDOGWOLFMAN creative director Jess Wheeler, Colenso BBDO art director Léon Bristow, and LBB news and features editor Tess Connery-Britten.
Special Australia and Honda: Young Macdonald Had No Farm
It’s soooooooo nice to see a team do something fresh with a car ad. This one has playful positioning, sexy execution and a beautifully crafted film spot by Justin Kurzel. I suddenly feel like I’m in the market for a perfectly sized SUV. Or maybe I just want to be Young Macdonald. She seems pretty cool.
Motion Sickness and Sealord: We Love Fish
Jess Wheeler – creative director, SICKDOGWOLFMAN
I’m a big fan of Motion Sickness in general, and this campaign is another reason to be. All too often we see brands try to manufacture a false reality, rather than lean into what actually is. Avoiding difficult truths and perceived weaknesses, when it’s far more powerful to embrace them and in the process convert them into strengths. Telling tinned tuna and office-microwaved fish-eating folk to ‘hold their fish up high’ because ‘fish is cool now’ is funny stuff.
Level.6, Pure New Zealand, and NZ Māori Tourism: BORN FROM CULTURE
Léon Bristow – art director, Colenso BBDO
While good cultural campaigns authentically platform, I think a great cultural campaign translates relevance.
BORN FROM CULTURE, a mini docuseries created in collaboration with Pure New Zealand and NZ Māori Tourism, has found a beautiful way to authentically merge traditional te ao Māori with the now. Balancing strength with tenderness, past with present, youth with age, seriousness with laughter, stillness with motion – capturing the essence and nuances of Aotearoa.
Cultural motifs can so often be decorative, rarely scratching beneath the surface. Level.6 has completely flipped the script, proving we don't need to be constrained by categories or conventions. But with the right people and considerations can completely reinvent them.
This is one of those magic trick campaigns that leaves me wondering: How? How did you make this? How did you sell it to clients? How did you direct street-cast talent to deliver something this powerful? How has no one done this before? But in the end, I don't really want to know -- it might spoil the magic.
Big mihi to James Fenwick and the team at Level.6 for platforming our culture with such care, confidence, and beauty.
FINCH and Cancer Council Victoria: Hope Discovered Daily
Tess Connery-Britten – AUNZ News and Features editor, LBB
Cancer Council Victoria's new brand platform moves the conversation around cancer away from diagnosis and towards life after treatment -- and what research into the disease makes possible.
Created in-house with The Ministry of Lateral Thoughts, 'Hope Discovered Daily' follows a young girl on what initially appears to be another hospital visit, only to reveal she's returning to school for the first time. It's an emotional gut-punch, in the best possible way.
