Nude airline pilots were among the "Grand Masters" named at one of New Zealand's premier ad events, the Marketing Association's RSVP and Nexus Awards, held last Friday at a ceremony in Auckland.
The 2009 RSVP Grand Prix - one of the night's two most important gongs - went to Air New Zealand's 'Nothing to Hide' integrated campaign, from agency .99. In order to highlight the airline's transparent fare system, staff appeared in promotions clad in body paint - and nothing else - as in this TV spot below.
The night's other top award, the Nexus Supreme, went to Progressive Enterprises and agency Affinity ID for the Onecard mySpecials programme, which rewards shoppers in participating stores with cash discount vouchers on purchases. The jury highlighted the campaign's "personalised" messages to customers - which could only be generated in the first place via "innovative" data mining and web marketing processes - as one of the main reasons behind the win.
Staying in New Zealand, the deadline for one of the country's other ceremonies, the CAANZ Media awards, organised by the nation's Communications Agencies Association and focusing on campaigns' strategy and implementation, falls next Monday (March 8th). The awards themselves are to be handed out in May; a separate set of prizes for creative, the CAANZ Axis awards, closed last month and will be handed out on March 25th.
In the UK, the Hollis Sponsorship Awards will be held at a ceremony in London next Tuesday (March 9th). These awards, organised by WLR Media & Entertainment, recognise the year's best sponsorship campaigns across a variety of both UK-only and international categories, including industry sectors such as arts, media and charity. There are also special awards for best use of research and PR, best specialist sponsorship consultancy and best campaign of under £50,000 ($75,400, €55,400).
Firms including Aviva, Britain's biggest insurer, utilities British Gas and Scottish Power, and Korean phonemaker Samsung are all up for gongs.
