Y&R New Zealand was the most awarded agency at this year’s prestigious D&AD awards, walking away with 11 pencils. D&AD, which represents global creative, design and advertising communities and celebrates brilliance in commercial creativity, also handed out two black pencils this year.
According to the D&AD, the Black Pencil is the ultimate creative accolade, reserved for work that is “ground-breaking in its field”. Only a handful of Black Pencils are awarded each year, if any.
The Black Pencils were handed to UK startup what3words, which created a way of communicating locations across the world, including places without postal addresses. Iyamadesign, which created a spatial design for the mt expo in Japan, on behalf of masking tape brand Kamoi Kakoshi, took home the other.
Y&R New Zealand picked up six Yellow Pencils for its ‘McWhopper’ campaign for Burger King.
Y&R global chief creative officer Tony Granger credited the Burger King’s passion and belief in the McWhopper idea.
“This is a truly special honor and it would not have been possible without our client, Fernando Machado, Burger King's SVP of global brand management. His passion for our idea and his unflagging support helped make this idea come to life," Granger says.
D&AD also handed out three White Pencils, which reward creativity for Good, with Clever Buoy by M&C Saatchi Sydney picking up a trophy; the first White Pencil ever awarded to an Australian agency.
Ogilvy Brasil also picked up a White Pencil for its Security Mom’s work for Sport Clube do Recife while Seymourpowell also won for its Fairphone 2 campaign.
The UK topped the winners list by country with a total of 217 pencils followed by the US with 143.
France came in third with 48 in total, Japan followed with 42 and New Zealand came in joint fifth with Brazil with 30.
Australia was in seventh place with 29 pencils; winning one white, one yellow, two graphite and 25 wood pencils.
The Joy Agency picked up the Yellow Pencil for its Cards Against Domestic Violence work for Domestic Violence NSW in the graphic communications category.
Other winners include Leo Burnett for its #MyFamilyCan campaign, production house Finch for its University of Western Sydney campaign featuring Deng Adut's story, DDB's The Unconventional Oven and GPY&R's Melanoma Likes Me.
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