For the second year running, Clemenger BBDO’s Paul Reardon has won the Gold Siren for the best radio ad of the year.
Reardon and creative partner Julian Schreiber took out the top award for their 60-second ad for RACV Financial Services called ‘Disclaimer’. They also won a Silver Siren in the single ad category.
The spot plays humorously on the need for disclaimers in ads, and features an argument between the man doing the ad and the man doing the disclaimer.
It is the fourth time in a row that a Melbourne agency has taken out the top radio ad prize. Last year Reardon and Jonas Peterson, who has since moved to DDB Sydney, took out the Gold Siren for a two minute ad for Snickers called ‘Hoedown’. That ad later went on to win the Cannes Radio Lions Grand Prix award, the first Australian radio ad ever to do so.
Reardon and Schreiber’s RACV ad will also be entered into this year’s Cannes Lions competition.
The awards were judged by the Siren Council, which is made up of creative directors and producers from advertising agencies and studios throughout Australia. Judge, Rem Bruijn from agency Make in Brisbane said: “The RACV ad was awarded the overall Gold Siren, not only because it turned radio advertising’s biggest negative into a positive, but also because it was thoroughly engaging and enjoyable to listen to. Beautifully written, cast, directed and performed.”
Reardon said: “It was purely circumstance, to do an ad for an RACV car loan, which unfortunately required almost 30 seconds of legal disclaimers, so it made sense for us to make such an overwhelming element of the ad the idea. Also disclaimers are a challenge every creative who writes radio has to face. How do we make them fit in and not sound like they’re undoing all the impact the ad had before all the legal jargon kicks in. It was great to write an ad where the ad and disclaimer literally had a fight.”
DDB Sydney’s “Children See Children Do” campaign continues its award winning run, taking a Silver Siren in the campaign category.
The other winner at this morning’s ceremony which was held in Melbourne, was a Silver Siren in the craft category which went to studio Sound Reservoir in Sydney for an ad for Work Against Culpable Driving (WACD), a Melbourne-based support group which aims to help prevent road trauma, called “Police Radio”.
A total of 570 entries were received for the competition, up almost 90% on last year.
