The Best Job in the World campaign for Tourism Queensland has won digital marketing consultancy SapientNitro the international grand prize at the 2010 AME Awards.
The campaign - structured around an attention-grabbing contest to live and work on the Australian state's picturesque Hamilton Island - also scooped a platinum trophy in the tourism and travel category at the event, held in New York last week.
Ben Southall, who beat out 34,000 other entrants to become the competition's eventual winner, reportedly suffered a few setbacks during his tenure - although it's worth noting that he's still employed by Tourism Queensland as a roving ambassador.
Other platinum AME winners included House of Imagination, a campaign for budget German DIY chain HORNBACH developed by agency HEIMAT Werbeagentur GmbH. The centrepiece of the integrated campaign, which won in the events marketing category, was an abandoned apartment building in Berlin.
Taking advantage of Berlin's status as an international art mecca, HORNBACH invited creatives from around the world to re-imagine the apartments as they pleased; members of the public were then invited to view the results, and visit a new nightclub and restaurant also set up in the building. The exhibition eventually attracted 18,000 visitors.
The campaign's message was also backed by traditional media, including posters which urged people to use their own artistic licence at home.
"If you can imagine it, you can build it."
Meanwhile, BBDO/Proximity Canada won the platinum AME Award for youth marketing with this campaign - for shaving firm Gillette, a P&G brand - featuring an enjoyably deadpan series of animated how-to videos, uploaded to the client's official YouTube account.
Elsewhere, winners of the North American Effies have been announced (full details here). BBDO and DDB US-owned agencies seem set to dominate when gold, silver and bronze prizes are announced at a ceremony in New York on June 8th, having won 11 Effies apiece on the initial list.
Elsewhere, one of the world's top ad events, the Cannes Lions, have launched a new competition for young creatives. For the 48 Hour Ad Contest, open to everyone under the age of 28, organisers will post a campaign brief on YouTube on Friday May 14th, with all video entries for the competition to be returned by Sunday.
A jury including Tribal DDB Amsterdam executive creative director Chris Baylis and Colleen DeCourcy, chief digital officer of TBWA\Worldwide, will then judge the videos - with the amount of online buzz each has received to be given particular attention - and the creators of the two winners will be invited to attend the festival itself in June. The entries will also be put forward to compete in the event's Young Lions Film Competition.
Further details for potential entrants are here.
In the UK, the Association of Online Publishers has unveiled its shortlist for its 2010 Digital Publishing Awards. Prizes across 17 categories are to be handed out in London on June 10th.
Guardian News & Media received the highest number of nominations this year with 13, while IPC and Reed Business Information were close behind on 12 and 11 respectively.
The free-to-enter Warc Prize for ideas and evidence - for which several high-profile jury members have recently been announced - is also still open. The deadline for submissions falls on May 11th.
For a full list of upcoming calls for entry, deadlines and awards dates, you can also check our newly-updated Warc awards calendar.
