Eleven Epica Awards for Swiss agencies
On Thursday, the Epica Awards were presented at Berlin's historic Kino International. Publicis Conseil provided the emotional highlight.
This year's Epica edition came to a worthy conclusion in the former premiere cinema of the GDR, which was well filled with around 300 people. Hosted by Editorial Director Mark Tungate, the show offered the best entertainment in places and, especially in the first half, thrilled the audience, who apparently saw many of the gold works presented for the first time. Because of the late submission deadline, the Epicas have the advantage of awarding prizes to many campaigns that are still "unused." All winners can here can be retrieved.
Success for Swiss agencies
To the already announced on Monday Gold Awards were joined by eight other awards during the week. Publics wins gold for the UBS retirement planning campaign Silver in the "Press" category with the L'Oréal campaign "Garnier Hide Yesterday". Also awarded silver is the Triumph campaign "Find the One" by the Zurich production company Stories. The third silver campaign is "Toy Soldiers" by Havas for the Zurich Chamber Orchestra.
Ruf Lanz wins bronze three times in 2015: Twice with the art transports for Welti Furrer in the categories "Press" and "Outdoor" and once for Persönlich in the category "Press". FCB Zurich receives bronze for the Neuroth radio spots "Quizshow" and, last but not least, Publicis completes the medal set with bronze for the campaign for the Women's Center Zurich.
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| Publicis | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Leo Burnett | 1 | ||
| Wirz | 1 | ||
| Havas | 1 | ||
| Stories | 1 | ||
| Call Lanz | 3 | ||
| FCB Zurich | 1 | ||
| Total | 3 | 3 | 5 |
Publicis Conseil gives you goose bumps
The highlight of the evening was undoubtedly the presentation of the Gold Award in the "Animation" category for the Renault Clio film "Go anywhere, go everywhere". The jury chose it as the winner of the category without knowing that the responsible lyricist Fabrice Dubois had died a few days earlier in the terrorist attacks in Paris. This information was deliberately withheld until after the jury's decision to ensure a fair competition. The fact that the Clio spot still won - despite strong competition - was a nice coincidence in a tragic context.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcbg_VVDECk
Leaders of the agency, which lost two of its employees and friends in the attacks, accepted the award and, fighting back tears, addressed the late Dubois in a humorous, heartfelt letter. Instead of a moment of silence, the moved room then commemorated the deceased with a minute of applause, paying tribute to his work.
Grand Prix: Japan outshines everything
This year, the four Grand Prix go to Austria (Demner, Merlicek & Bergmann / Outdoor), England (AdamandeveDBB / Press), Holland (J. Walter Thompson Amsterdam / Digital) and Japan (Watts of Tokyo / Film). The Japanese agency, which came all the way from Tokyo to accept the award in Berlin in person, caused a stir among the jury and the audience with its film "High School Girl?" for cosmetics manufacturer Shiseido.
JWT Amsterdam also impressed with its campaign for the online translator Elan - incidentally the only award for a Dutch agency this year. An experiment was used to demonstrate how differently Elan and Google Translate translate. A Japanese rezpet for a sushi rice cake was translated and recreated.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OdqF5dhVws
The Press Grand Prix goes to London to the AdamandeveDDB agency for the "John Lewis Southampton" campaign for the British department store chain John Lewis.
The Outdoor Grand Prix goes to Austria. Demner, Merlicek & Bergmann has developed billboards for Mini that respond to light signals and synchronously change the color of the Minis on display.
Thomas Häusermann
