Yellow Pencils for Lowe Bull, JWT

Lowe Bull's “Meet Wally's Heart” campaign for Unilever's Flora was awarded in the integrated category at the event in London, hosted by actor Richard E Grant and D&AD president Garrick Hamm.

Open-heart surgery

The Lowe Bull campaign, by writers Lee Naidoo and Dominique Silva and art director Christopher Charoux, saw five million South Africans watching open-heart surgery on live TV last August. It followed a week-long multimedia campaign.

JWT's “Researchers Wanted”, by writers Conn Bertish and Stuart McCreadie and art director Brenton Bubb, took the form of a job advertisement for film researchers hidden away at the very end of film credits rolling in cinemas.

A total of 20 000 entries - from music-video design to straightforward advertising - were judged this year, and 174 of these were nominated for awards.

Four Black Pencils

Apart from an overall 54 Yellow Pencils, four Black Pencils for groundbreaking advertising were also announced - an honour so elusive that, in some years, none are awarded. Last year, however, had a record haul of six.

Droga5 NYC took home two Black Pencils: one for a campaign on US academic standards, the other for “The Great Schlep”, a US pre-election viral campaign in which comedian Sarah Silverman championed Barack Obama to Jewish voters.

The remaining Black Pencils were handed out in the graphic-design category - for Matt Dent's coin designs for Britain's Royal Mint - and in the category for environmental design, for German studio Art+Com's “Kinetic Sculpture” , made for the BMW Museum. (No relation to Ireland/Davenport's award-winning kinetic-sculpture TV ad for the same brand.)

Lifetime achievement

The President's Award for lifetime achievement was given to Michael Peters OBE this year, although he wasn't present to accept his award. Peters is credited as "the designer who brought creativity into the boardroom". Past recipients include Jonathan Ive, Sir Alan Parker and Sir John Hegarty.

D&AD president Hamm commented, “The breadth of creative work that's been awarded this year is exceptional. We're in the midst of a challenging time, and this work shows what the industry is capable of.

“The four Black Pencil winners demonstrate the power and all-encompassing nature of creativity - in education, politics and even in the change in our pockets. These winners are more than just great pieces of communication; they change our behaviour and touch our lives.”

Last year, South Africa won a single Yellow Pencil, awarded to BBDO Cape Town (now Net#work BBDO Cape Town) for its Marshall Music “Drums” radio commercial.

The “Wally's Heart” campaign led to middle-aged everyman Wally's battle with heart disease being discussed on South African talk shows, in newspapers and on blogs in the days before his operation. During the live TV event, thousands of SMSs were received and displayed on screen, and the campaign website chalked up roughly 43 000 hits.

All the winners

D&AD is a British not-for-profit organisation that represents the international design, advertising and creative communities. Its inaugural awards ceremony was held in 1963. For more, go to http://awards.dandad.org/2009, read the D&AD blog, join the D&AD Facebook group, follow @dandad on Twitter, view D&AD on YouTube and D&AD photos on Flickr.

For more:

• Bizcommunity.com editorial blog: [D&AD] The lowdown on D&AD 2009 [guest blogger Deon Wiggett]
  
• Twitter: Riaan Wolmarans' tweets from D&AD
  
• Twitter Search results: "D&AD or dandad"