The One Club, producer of the One Show and Creative Week, is seen as the world's foremost non-profit organisation recognising creative excellence in advertising and design. Through the One Show, One Club honours the best work across all disciplines, including advertising, interactive, design and branded entertainment. This forms part of the annual May Creative Week in New York City. It’s a festival celebrating “the intersection of advertising and the arts”, with highlights on this year’s schedule including a day-long Comedy Writers’ Workshop exploring comedic writing that’ll be led by some of the best in the game, including SA’s own Ross Chowles, as well as a photography exhibition featuring originals of Madonna, Steve Jobs and more, which will form part of a silent auction with proceeds going towards scholarships for students participating in One Inclusion and Diversity (One ID) programmes.
It’s this strong push towards empowerment and upliftment that’s the One Show’s true stand-out factor: Funds received from agencies entering the awards is also used to uplift, train and improve the creative industry.
Andreu explains that as the One Show celebrates creative excellence, a One Show Pencil award represents the pinnacle of creative achievement. The One Club was established as the organisation that produces The One Show in 1978, and since then has acted as the “keeper of the creative flame,” which over the years has expanded to include education, diversity and professional development initiatives. And as the industry has changed so has The One Show, adding new disciplines and categories when warranted.
One of these changes in 2016 is the introduction of the Penta Pencil, which stands out for its relationship focus: It’s set to award an agency-brand team that has consistently created stellar work for the last five years. So they're not looking for a one-off happy accident that worked but rather a tried-and-tested way of working together that provides results that resonate.
In addition to this, two dedicated One Show award ceremonies will be held this year, taking place on the nights of Wednesday, 11 and Friday, 13 May at the Cipriani Wall Street and Gotham Hall respectively, with Ellie Kemper and Michael Ian Black as hosts.
All in all, a wonderful way to inspire future industry growth by celebrating the best the world has to offer. But don’t despair if you’re not personally attending this year’s One Show Creative Week, as our roving reporter Ann Nurock will be there in person, live-tweeting the action and providing exclusive coverage for you right here on Biz, in our One Show awards special section!
