The winners of the London International Awards were announced Monday, and Canadian agencies picked up 29 awards, including five golds.
FCB/Six led the way for Canada with six awards, including a pair of golds in the Digital: Travel, and Integration: Business-to-Consumer categories for its “Go Back to Africa” work on behalf of Black & Abroad.
Other gold winners included Zulu Alpha Kilo for its “Mix and Match” campaign for KitchenAid (see video below); Taxi Toronto for its series of illustrations for United Way’s #Unignorable campaign; and Cossette for “Sick Kids Vs.—Crews” campaign.
McCann Canada also won big at the show, though the awards were officially added to the U.S tally. The organ donation campaign “Second Chances” landed four golds, a silver and a bronze, and was a joint project by McCann’s Toronto, New York and Costa Mesa offices.*
Although it didn’t win Gold, Leo Burnett won four awards (one silver and three bronze) for its “TD Poster Bank” on behalf of TD, plus two bronze awards in the Design category for its work with the coconut milk brand Grinning Face and the Museum of Contemporary Art.
Coming as they do late in the awards show calendar, many of the big winners had already won top trophies at Festivals like Cannes. “Viva la Vulva” won three Grand LIA awards for Essity Libresse/Bodyform, while “Whopper Detour” for Burger King won two Grand LIA awards, as did the New York Times for “The Truth is Worth it.”
Client of the year was Burger King, while network of the year was McCann Worldgroup. McCann New York won agency of the year.
McCann New York was also the top agency in North America, though FCB won network of the year. FCB made LIA news last month when it said it would end its partnership with the festival after former Droga5 creative director Ted Royer was invited to speak during Creative LIAsons.
Bensimon Byrne won three bronze craft awards for its “Boys Don’t Cry” campaign on behalf of White Ribbon, as well as bronze in the Branded Entertainment category for its short film on behalf of Casey House.
Other Canadian winners on the night included lg2 with a pair of silvers for 13th Street Winery; DDB Vancouver with two silvers for Emerald Health Therapeutics, and Juniper Park\TBWA with a silver for Save our Libraries.
*This story has been updated to included the McCann Canada wins, which were overlooked in the original article.
—With files from David Brown