MARKETFORCE DOMINATE AT PADC AWARDS, BUT THE BRAND AGENCY SNARES BEST OF SHOW

Friday night was a big night for the Perth creative industry with the handing out of gongs at the Perth Advertising & Design Club (PADC) annual awards. This year the judges handed out a record 10 Gold Awards, including five to Marketforce.
The night’s two big awards, Best of Show and The West Australian Fellowship, went to The Brand Agency and Marketforce respectively. The Brand’s WaterCorp ‘Dab’ newspaper advertisement was named Best of Show and Marketforce’s Lotto ‘Fat Wallet’ won the Fellowship trip for two to attend the 2007 Cannes Advertising Festival – paid for by The West Australian newspaper.
“It was the most gold awards awarded in the history of the Club,” said chairman of judges and ex Perth creative Matt Eastwood, now deputy chairman and national creative director of DDB Australia.
Gold was unearthed across almost all the major categories: design, direct, press and television. The strength as always was in simple well executed ideas within a budget that could handle them.







“No matter how much money you had you wouldn’t have done them any other way,” said Adam Lance, creative director of Lowe Hunt, Sydney of the winners.
In total 10 Gold, 15 Silver and 25 Bronze awards were handed out on the night, held at the University of Western Australia in front of around 300 people. Marketforce led the way with eight Silvers and seven Bronzes to back up their five Golds. Three of their Golds went to work created on LotteryWest with their other Golds awarded to work on Office of Road Safety and Brownes Dairy, both in the TV categories.
With two Golds in addition to Best of Show, the WaterCorp ‘Dab’ press execution was the star of the show for The Brand Agency. They also won one Silver and four Bronze awards. 303 also picked up a Gold, two Silver and three Bronze awards. Their Gold was in the TV category for HBF. In the Design categories Block Branding won a Gold in Identity Application. Two other agencies also had a good night out - Gatecrasher (three Silver and five Bronze) and Rare Creative Thinking (one Silver and five Bronze).
Overall the judging could be described as very generous when compared to previous recent PADC awards, with even some Gold winners surprised that their work reached that level. Over previous years only a handful of Gold awards have been awarded, with just three Golds awarded last year and the year before. This is probably down to two reasons. One, it is a particularly strong year for Perth, especially in print where the ads that came out of The West Australian/Campaign Brief Caxton competition have all proved themselves on a national stage. Secondly, there is no doubt Chairman of Judges, and Perth expat, Matt Eastwood did not want to be remembered as a ‘Hanging Judge’. The result was a night that saw a lot of people very happy and it has certainly left the industry on a bit of a high.