After the passing of Aussie creative Neil Lawrence, 61, on a surfing holiday in the Maldives, B&T has put together some of Lawrence’s greatest works and how the media world is mourning.

Advertising creative legend Neil Lawrence died suddenly while on a surfing trip in the Maldives. From his bio on the Lawrence site, Lawrence is described as having a “creative flair with a deep understanding of highly complex, strategic, political and corporate issues”.

Kevin 07

Remember back in the day when Kevin Rudd inspired hope and change? Lawrence was the strategic and creative mind behind the “Kevin ’07” advertising campaign, he won Australian Marketer of the Year for his work for the Australian Labor Party.

Recognise

“Recognise is the brand and campaign name, created for the peoples movement to recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in the Australian Constitution,” wrote Lawrence Creative on its website, the agency behind the campaign.

“Since it launched at the at the 2012 Aria awards, with the T-shirt worn by Yothu Yindi band members as they were welcomed into the Aria Hall Of Fame, the campaign has received support from over 248,000 online supporters, many AFL players and clubs, all major political parties and large corporates.”

2009 Queensland State Election

“Advertising was used effectively to contrast Anna Bligh’s strength with Opposition Leader Lawrence Springborg’s inability to recognise that Queenslanders were affected by the global recession,” said the website. “The advertising campaign finished strongly by highlighting the risk Lawrence Springborg and his inexperienced team posed the people of Queensland.

“Anna Bligh created history and defied opinion polls to win the Queensland election and earn the Labor Party a fifth consecutive term.”

This is one of Neil Lawrence’s election ads. I think it’s the best political neg ad ever done in Australia. https://t.co/agxaovQlxf

— DeeMadigan (@deemadigan) July 15, 2015

Generation One

From the website, Lawrence Creative described it: “Generation One is a 2010 movement to bring all Australians together, to end the disparity between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians in one generation. Lawrence creative spoke to media companies all around Australia, asking for two minutes of free air time; not for an ad, but for an address to the nation.

“With donated space from Newspaper and online media companies, we announced an address. Through Twitter we monitored the buzz and the speculation. Then on a Sunday night, for the first time ever, a non-political address was broadcast across all free to air channels. Maddy, a 13 year Aboriginal girl spoke to six million Australians.”

Statistics from the campaign, according to the site, include:

In 24 hours

• 2.4 million hits to the website
• 10,000 watched the address online

In the first week

• 15,000 joined the movement
• 28 per cent increase of awareness for GenerationOne

Qantas ‘Feels like home’

The campaign was created by Lawrence Creative, and the highly emotive film was regaled throughout adland. At the time Olivia Wirth, Qantas group executive and brand market, said: “I’ve been there too, I know what it’s like, when you’re sitting on the tube thinking ‘I know i’m going to miss London but I want to go home’.”

https://youtu.be/16RhgfA662k