SYDNEY: A long-term campaign for Canadian Club, a rye whiskey, to win Australians away from beer and onto a premixed drink has won the Grand Effie at the Australian Effie Awards.

At a ceremony in Sydney last night, a total of three Golds, nine Silvers and eleven Bronzes were awarded to 18 agencies. Meat & Livestock Australia took a separate award for the Advertiser of the Year.

Created by The Works, an independent Sydney agency, the winning case study – Keeping Australians 'Over Beer' for 5 years – detailed a campaign by Beam-Suntory, the alcoholic drinks company, to promote Canadian Club mixed with dry ginger as a "sessionable" drink that could rival beer.

Campaign visuals implied the drink was refreshing, and ads were focused on the "path to pub", as Beam-Suntory knew most people decided what to drink on the way. Honing this approach over several years increased sales by over 33% nationally.

Warc subscribers can browse all the winners of the Australian Effie Awards, which were jointly presented by The Communications Council and the Australian Association of National Advertisers (AANA). A total of 84 finalists, from 36 agencies competed across 19 categories.

Golds also went to Luxottica, the eyewear brand, and SA Health, the public health body for South Australia.

Saatchi & Saatchi devised The most important story you will ever read to your child for OPSM, an Australian opticians chain owned by Luxottica.

With many children not having regular eye tests and many parents unaware of this need, OPSM created a children's story book incorporating vision testing methods to allow parents to screen their children's sight and determine whether they needed an eye test.

This approach was a success as OPSM increased volume sales of children's eye tests and children's eyewear.

For SA Health, Showpony Advertising came up with a campaign that increased immunisation rates amongst Aboriginal children, only 71% of whom were fully immunised at 12 months of age.

Gift packs for new Aboriginal mothers included three grow-suits with printed reminders to get their babies immunised at two, four and six months. The results were staggering, as immunisation rates reached almost 92%, surpassing rates for non-aboriginal children.

Data sourced from Effie Australia; additional content by Warc staff