The London International Awards were announced on Wednesday, and No Fixed Address was named North America’s independent agency of the year for a trophy haul that included three Silver awards, five Bronze and one Finalist.
Other notable Canadian winners included Leo Burnett, which won a Gold for Metrolinx; and Juniper Park\TBWA with a Gold for the “Signal for Help,” while Zulu Alpha Kilo landed 14 awards in all (1 Silver, 6 Bronze and 7 Finalists).
Ogilvy Toronto can also celebrate winning one of the top awards, a Grand LIA in billboards, though the official credit goes to Ogilvy London.
NFA’s awards were for three different projects:
“SickKids Airbnb” for SickKids Foundation (1 Silver, 3 Bronze 1 Finalist). The execution featured an Airbnb listing for an uncomfortable stay inside an overcrowded, noisy, stressful room in the hospital’s world-class—but financially challenged—Paediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU).
“Happy Birthday Twitter” for Canadian Centre for Child Protection, (1 Silver, 2 Bronze) was an online PSA demanding that Twitter do more to stop the spread of child sexual abuse material on its platform.
And “Naming Rights” for Little Caesar’s (1 Silver), which saw hockey fans give the pizza chain exclusive naming rights to their “fan cave” in exchange for an exclusive Little Caesar’s deal each week.
“This list is a demonstration of the strength of our model,” said NFA president Mark Carpenter. “We are able to produce meaningful work across multiple clients, that can travel across a lot of marketing disciplines.” Aside from traditional and digital creative and strategic expertise, the agency has also developed a PR and media practice in recent years, for example.
“Our creative and strategy teams can work with PR and content to produce really impactful experiences like SickKids Airbnb, while we can take a simple challenge from a client like Little Caesars around activating a sponsorship and turn it into a really smart campaign that is digitally led, but also activates through PR and retail.”
Leo Burnett’s Gold was for Metrolinx’s “It’s Happening” online films, talking about about how the transit agency is going through a bit of an “awkward phase” as it attempts to complete a series of ambitious projects.
And Juniper Park\TBWA’s Gold was for the Canadian Women’s Foundation discreet hand gesture, intended for women trapped at home with an abusive partner during Covid lockdowns, and which recently made headlines around the world for being used by a kidnapped teen to signal for help.
A total of 16 Grand LIAs were awarded (see the list below), while Burger King won client of the year, Ogilvy won network of the year, and Publicis Italy, Milan was agency of the year.
- Publicis Italy, Milan in Ambient & Activation, for Heineken‘s “Shutter Ads”
- Ogilvy UK, London in Billboard, for Dove’s “Amanda”, “Patricia”, “Patrick”
- R/GA California, San Francisco in Creative Use of Data, for Reddit‘s “Up The Vote”
- Jones Knowles Ritchie in Design, for Burger King‘s “Your Way, Way Better”
- 750mph, London in Health & Wellness – Craft, for Libresse‘s “#wombstories”
- DAVID, Madrid in Integration, for Burger King‘s “Stevenage Challenge”
- CANJA Audio Culture, Curitiba in Music & Sound, for Fala Mulher‘s “2breakthesilence”
- DAVID, Madrid in Non-Traditional, for Burger King‘s “Stevenage Challenge”
- Burger King in Online Film, for Burger King‘s “Moldy Whopper”
- Dentsu Inc., Tokyo in Package Design, for Pocky‘s titled “The Gift”
- BWM Isobar, Sydney in Pharma & Medical, for Garvan Institute of Medical Research‘s “Disease Dilemmas”
- Saatchi & Saatchi Wellness, New York in Pharma & Medical – Craft, for Tikkun Olam Makers‘ “The Prescription Paper Pill Bottle”
- Burger King in Print, for Burger King‘s “Moldy Whopper”
- Riff Raff Films, London in Production & Post-Production, for Burberry‘s “Festive”
- draftLine Colombia, Bogotá in Transformative Business Impact, for Tienda Cerca‘s “Tienda Cerca”
- BETC Paris, Paris in TV/Cinema, for Lacoste‘s “Crocodile Inside”